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Dessert

A Simple Dessert

A baked apple dessert filled with boiled rice and topped with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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A Simple Dessert

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Simple Dessert

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel and core the apples.

  3. Place the apples in a shallow baking pan.

  4. Add ½ cup of water and sprinkle ½ cup of sugar over the apples.

  5. Sprinkle with nutmeg and add a few drops of lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. Once done, fill the cavity of each apple with boiled rice.

  2. Top each apple with a spoonful of jelly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Hold their shape as they soften, forming the base of the dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the water and juices form a light syrup in the pan.
Boiled rice
Fills the cavities, adding a soft, starchy body to each apple.
Jelly
Adds a sweet, glossy topping that softens slightly against the warm apple.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Baking the apples until just tender. Baking too long lets the apples collapse and release too much liquid, while underbaking leaves them firm. Apples soften as their cell walls break down with heat, so checking them during the 30 minutes keeps their shape while they become tender enough to fill.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, lemon, rice):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, lemon, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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