Name: Baked Apples
Ingredients: sour apples; sugar; chopped nuts; chopped dates or figs; maple syrup (optional); water; whipped cream (optional); lemon juice or grated lemon rind (optional)

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Baked Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Core and peel the sour apples.
Place them in a shallow baking dish.
Fill the cavities with sugar, chopped nuts, chopped dates, or figs.
If using nuts or fruit, add sugar or maple syrup as well.
Add enough water to cover the bottom of the dish.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until tender.
Carefully transfer the apples to a serving dish.
Reduce the syrup until thick and pour over the apples.
Serve with a mound of whipped cream on each apple, if desired.
You can also bake pears and quinces in the same way.
Add lemon juice or grated lemon rind for extra flavor, if desired.

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.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Apple + datestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together119 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + maple syruptop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Nuts + datestop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together178 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Dates + maple syruptop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, nuts, dates, maple syrup, cream):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Bananafits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, nuts, dates, maple syrup, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.