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Dessert

Preserved Apples

A method for preserving apples by boiling them with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Preserved Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut and prepare a quantity of pippin apples.

  2. Boil the parings and cores in water for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the water and add it to the sliced apples.

Cook

  1. Simmer the mixture in a saucepan until the apples are tender.

  2. Add 1½ pounds of sugar for each quart of fruit.

  3. Boil gently for 1½ hours, stirring to prevent burning.

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

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

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

Pippin apples
Provide the fruit that softens and sets into the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps the preserve thicken and keep.
Water
Extracts pectin from the parings and cores to aid setting.

The step that matters

Stirring during the long boil. Sugar-rich mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the pan as they thicken. Frequent stirring over gentle heat prevents burning and keeps the preserve from tasting bitter or caramelised unevenly.

“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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