Name: Apples in Maple Syrup
Ingredients: 8 apples; 1 cup maple syrup; 1½ cups water; 2 tablespoons butter

Why it works: Apple and maple syrup work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 272 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apples in Maple Syrup

Ingredients

8 apples
1 cup maple syrup
1½ cups water
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

Prepare

Cut the apples in half and remove the cores with a teaspoon.
Place the apples in a baking pan.

Bake and serve

Add the maple syrup, water, and butter to the pan.
Bake until the syrup thickens.
Serve with whipped cream.

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.

Apple + maple syruptop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Maple syrup + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,084 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Hold their shape while softening and provide the main body of the dish.
Maple syrup: Adds sweetness and flavour, and thickens into a syrupy sauce as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the cooking liquid, helping the sauce taste rounded.