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To Stew Apples for Tarts

Stewed apples flavored with lemon peel, cinnamon, sugar, and cloves, then sieved for use in tarts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Stew Apples for Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare, cut into quarters, and core the apples.

  2. Place the apples in a stew pan with lemon peel, water, and cinnamon stick.

Stew and finish

  1. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat until the apples dissolve.

  2. Sweeten with sifted sugar to taste and add syrup of cloves.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and let it cool before using.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into a soft pulp that forms the body of the stewed filling.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apples.
Syrup of cloves
Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the apples.

The step that matters

Cover the pan and cook over medium heat until the apples dissolve. Covering traps steam so the apples soften evenly without scorching on the base. Gentle heat lets the pieces break down into a smooth pulp, which is what makes sieving work well.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, sugar, syrup, clove. 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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