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Dessert

Apple Soup

Apple Soup is a sweet dish made with apples, sago, lemon, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Apple Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the apples with 4 cups of water, cloves, and sago.

  2. Add the lemon sliced thin and powdered cinnamon.

  3. Sweeten to taste with lump sugar.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 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 during boiling to give the soup its body and fruity flavor.
Sago
Its starch swells and thickens the liquid as it cooks.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent aroma to the soup.
Powdered cinnamon
Adds a warm, sweet aroma that complements the apples.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness, adjusted to taste.

The step that matters

Cooking the sago fully. Sago starch must boil long enough to swell and turn translucent. If it is undercooked, it stays chalky and grainy and does not thicken the soup properly.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, lemon, clove, cinnamon, sugar):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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