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Dessert

Wine Saps

Apples cooked with sugar and sherry wine, then served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 395 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Wine Saps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the apples.

  2. Core the apples.

  3. Scald the apples.

  4. Place the apples in a pan.

  5. Add enough water to half cover the apples.

  6. Add ½ cup sugar.

Cook the apples

  1. Cook the apples, turning them several times to prevent uneven cooking.

  2. Carefully remove the apples when nearly done.

  3. Add 1½ cups sugar to the water.

  4. Cook until almost candied.

  5. Return the apples to the pan.

  6. Cook until well seasoned with the sugar.

Serve

  1. Pour 1 teaspoon of sherry wine over the apples before serving.

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 + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  4. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 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

Apples
Provide the main body; their flesh softens and holds shape as they cook in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and, as the syrup thickens, candies their surface.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a sherry flavour to the finished apples.

The step that matters

Carefully remove the apples when nearly done. Apples keep cooking in hot syrup after they leave the heat. If they stay in too long, the flesh breaks down and turns mushy. Lifting them out early preserves their shape until the syrup is ready to finish them.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Applethe original
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Grapefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, wine. 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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