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Dessert

Lemon Apple

A gelatin set dessert of tart apples and lemon, sweetened with sugar and set with gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lemon Apple

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and quarter the tart apples.

  2. Boil the apples gently with one lemon for every six apples.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup with ½ pound of white sugar for each pound of apples.

  2. Slice the apples and lemons, then add them to the syrup.

  3. Boil gently until the apples look clear.

Finish and set

  1. Carefully remove the apples, then add 1 ounce or more of gelatin to the syrup.

  2. Boil well, then lay a slice of lemon on each apple and strain the syrup over them.

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.

  1. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples
Provide the fruit body and pectin that help the jelly set and hold its flavour.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps pectin set the jelly.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup thicken and preserve the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the syrup into a firm jelly as it cools.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup well before adding gelatine and straining. Gelatine only sets properly when the syrup is hot and fully dissolved, so it must be boiled well and kept evenly mixed. Under-boiling leaves the jelly soft; over-boiling after adding gelatine can weaken its setting power.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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