Skip to main content
Dessert

Apples, Baked

A simple baked apple dish cooked with sugar and water until soft and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apples, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select sound fruit and remove the core from each end using a corer.

  2. Peel the apples one-third down from the stem.

Cook

  1. Place the apples in a pan with the peeled end down and add ½ inch of cold water.

  2. Boil on the stove until the apples begin to break.

  3. Turn the apples in the pan, sprinkle with sugar, and place under the broiler.

  4. Baste often with juice until the apples are brown and soft.

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

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

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 tender flesh that softens during cooking and becomes the dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them brown under the broiler.

The step that matters

Baste often with juice under the broiler. Sugar caramelizes and browns quickly under high heat, so the apples can scorch before they soften. Basting with their own juice keeps the surfaces moist and promotes even browning.

“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.

More baked apples recipes

with Wine 10with Cream 7with Butter 5with Meringue 5with Rice 5with Syrup 5 See all 248 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes