Name: Baked Sweet Apples
Ingredients: sweet apples; milk; cream; whipped cream

Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Baked Sweet Apples

Ingredients

sweet apples
milk
cream
whipped cream

Directions

Select nice sweet apples and wipe them well.
Quarter and core the apples, but do not peel them.
Fill a dish nearly to the top with the apples.
Set the dish into a kettle of water or steamer and steam until nearly soft.
Place the dish in the oven, covering it with a plate.
Bake until the juice is nearly absorbed.
Serve with milk, cream, or whipped cream.

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.

Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,089 recipes

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