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Dessert

Baked Apples with Cream

A baked apple dish served with cream and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Baked Apples with Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wipe the apples carefully and remove the cores from the blossom end, creating a small well in each.

  2. Place the apples in a deep pie dish and fill each with a heaping tablespoon of sugar, adding an extra spoonful over all.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the boiling water into the bottom of the dish.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size of the apples.

  3. Once done, transfer the apples to a serving dish and pour the jelly that formed during baking over them.

  4. Serve with cream and powdered 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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
Hold their shape while softening, and their juices form the syrup that bakes into jelly.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the apples and dissolves into the juices to form the syrupy jelly.
Cream
Adds richness and cool moisture that balances the warm, sweet apples.

The step that matters

Bake until the apples are tender. Apples vary in size, and the 1 to 1.5 hour range depends on it. Underbaked apples stay firm and starchy, while overbaked ones collapse. Testing for softness at the thick part of the fruit shows when they are done.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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