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Apple Punch

A chilled apple punch made with apples, raisins, bay leaves, cinnamon, lemon rind, water, lemon juice, and sugar, served over shaved ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch base

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine the quartered apples, raisins, bay leaves, cinnamon, lemon rind, and 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add 2 more quarts of cold water.

  3. Cover and boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain the mixture through a muslin bag.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cool, stir in the lemon juice and sugar until dissolved.

  2. Serve over shaved ice.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 main fruit flavor and body as they soften and release their juices during boiling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a deeper fruit flavor to the simmered base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the cooled liquid to balance the acidity.

The step that matters

Stir in the sugar only after the base has cooled. Sugar dissolves more readily in a cooled liquid, and adding acidic lemon juice to a very hot base can dull its fresh flavor, so waiting helps the punch taste bright and evenly sweetened.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, cinnamon, 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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