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Dessert

Green Codlins, Frosted with Sugar

Green codlins (green apples) are blanched, buttered, sugared, baked, and served with perfumed cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Codlins, Frosted with Sugar

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch the codlins in water with roche-alura and some vine leaves until nearly done.

  2. Remove the skin from the apples.

Frost and bake

  1. Rub the apples with oiled fresh butter and sift plenty of sugar over them.

  2. Place the apples on a clean baking sheet and put them in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  3. Remove them when the sugar sparkles like frost.

Serve

  1. Let them cool and serve in a trifle glass with perfumed cream around them, garnished with a small flower on top of each codlin.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Codlins (green apples)
Provide the main body of the dish, staying firm enough to hold their shape after blanching and baking.
Fresh butter
Coats the apples so the sugar adheres and helps the surface brown lightly in the oven.
Sugar
Forms the frosted, sparkling crust on the apples and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Removing the apples when the sugar sparkles like frost. Sugar keeps browning and can turn to a sticky, darkened coating if baked too long. Removing the apples as soon as the sugar looks glassy preserves the frosted appearance.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, sugar, 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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