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Dessert

Apple Lemon

Apples boiled in a coffee sugar syrup, finished with boiled lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Lemon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Core and quarter the apples.

Make the syrup

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine coffee sugar and water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Drop in the apples and cook until tender.

  4. Carefully remove the apples and place them in a glass dish.

Add the lemon

  1. Slice the lemon thinly.

  2. Boil the sliced lemon in a teacup of water until tender.

  3. Add the boiled lemon to the syrup, boil once or twice, and pour over the apples.

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

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

  2. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Apple + coffeetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Provide the main body and fruity flavor, softening into tender pieces as they cook.
Coffee sugar
Sweetens the syrup and gives the apples a sweet, glossy coating.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness of the syrup.

The step that matters

Drop in the apples and cook until tender. Apples keep their shape best when simmered gently only until a knife slides in. Overcooking breaks down the pectin and cell walls, so the quarters turn mushy and fall apart when removed.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, coffee, 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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