Skip to main content
Dessert

Apples, Stewed, for Dessert

Stewed apples cooked with sugar, cloves, lemon, and water, served with reduced juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apples, Stewed, for Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Wipe the apples carefully.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with sugar, cloves, lemon rind, lemon juice, and water.

  3. Simmer at the side of the fire until the apples are tender but not broken.

Finish and serve

  1. Lift the apples out with a spoon and place them in a glass dish.

  2. Strain the juice and boil it for a few minutes to reduce.

  3. When almost cold, pour the reduced juice 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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 stewing and provide the main body of the dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and syrup, and helps thicken the reduced juice.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender but not broken. Gentle heat softens the apple flesh by breaking down pectin and starch slowly. A hard boil can split the skins and turn the fruit to mush, so keep the liquid barely simmering and check the apples often.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More stewed apples recipes

with Custard 4for Tarts 3with Butter 3 See all 88 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes