Name: Panned Baked Apples
Ingredients: apples; 2 tablespoons sugar; ½ pint water

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 ↓

Panned Baked Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

apples
2 tablespoons sugar
½ pint water

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Core and cut apples into eighths.
Layer apples in a baking dish, sprinkling each layer with sugar.
Add water to the dish.

Bake and serve

Cover and bake at 400°F (200°C) until soft.
Serve hot in the baking dish.

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 + 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

Apples: Provide the main body and softened flesh that becomes tender when baked.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the apple surfaces caramelise lightly in the oven.
Water: Creates steam in the covered dish, helping the apples cook evenly and soften.

“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.