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Dessert

Buttered Apples

A dish of peeled apples baked with butter, sugar, and jam on stale bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Buttered Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples without cutting them.

  2. Cut slices of stale bread large enough for each apple to stand on.

  3. Butter an earthenware cooking pot.

Cook

  1. Place the bread and apples inside the pot.

  2. Add a small piece of butter on top of each apple.

  3. Cover the pot.

  4. Place it over a gentle fire, or use hot coals on top for better results.

  5. Check the apples occasionally.

  6. Ensure the fire is not too hot to burn the bread.

  7. Refill the hollows with sugar and butter.

  8. When almost done, fill the hollows in the apples with jam.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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 that softens and turns tender as they cook slowly.
Stale bread
Acts as a base under each apple, soaking up juices and browning gently.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the apples and bread brown in the pot.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling caramelise in the hollows.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the hollows near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Keep the fire gentle. If the heat is too high, the bread can burn before the apples soften through. Slow, even heat lets the apples cook through while the bread toasts lightly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applethe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, 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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