Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Baked Apples
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the apples
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cut out the blossom and stem from the apples.
Place some sugar in the stem end of each apple.
Place the apples in a dish with a small amount of water if they are sweet; if sour, the juice will suffice.
For a richer dish, pare and core the apples.
Fill the cavity of each apple with butter and sugar.
Sprinkle cinnamon over the apples.
Bake and serve
Bake until soft.
Serve warm or cold.
Serve warm with cream or milk.
Alternative: layered apples
Alternatively, pare and quarter tart apples.
Layer the quartered apples in an earthen baking dish.
Add lumps of butter and sprinkle cinnamon between layers.
Repeat layers until the dish is full.
Bake until soft.
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.
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Apples
- Soften during baking and form the body of the dessert.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling caramelize slightly as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the cavity or layers as it melts.
- Cinnamon
- Adds warm aroma that complements the cooked apple flavor.
The step that matters
Bake until soft. Apples need enough time for their starch and cell walls to break down; underbaked apples stay firm and tough, while the heat must be steady enough to cook them through without collapsing.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cinnamon, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cinnamon, cream. 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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