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Dessert

Apple Conserve

A sweet preserve made from apples, sugar, syrup, spices, citrus, raisins, walnuts, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Apple Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Boil the apple sauce, brown sugar, syrup, cloves, cinnamon, oranges, lemons, and raisins for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the walnut meats last and seal the mixture.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sauce + syruptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple sauce
Forms the bulk of the conserve and provides moisture and body as it cooks down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fruit thicken into a glossy, spreadable texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the finished conserve.
English walnut meats
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor against the soft fruit.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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