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Spiced Crab Apples

Preserved crab apples simmered in a sugar and cider vinegar syrup with cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Spiced Crab Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Select sound Siberian or Transcendent crab apples with stems on.

  2. Boil sugar and cider vinegar to a rich syrup.

  3. Add stick of cinnamon to the syrup.

Cook and pack the apples

  1. Drop a few crab apples into the syrup and cook until tender.

  2. Remove apples and place in jars.

  3. Continue until all apples are used.

  4. If apples are very ripe, steam them until tender, then place in jars and pour syrup over them.

  5. Boil the syrup down and pour over the fruit.

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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Crab apples
Provide the fruit that cooks until tender and carries the spiced flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit's shape and texture.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the syrup its sharp balance against the sweetness.
Stick cinnamon
Infuses the syrup with warm, aromatic spice.

The step that matters

Cooking the apples in the syrup until tender. Cooking in a rich, hot syrup firms the skins and flesh so apples hold their shape, while overcooking makes them split and go mushy. Very ripe apples are softer, which is why the record offers steaming as an alternative.

“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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