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 ↓
Appleade, No. 1
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and slice the apples; do not peel or core them.
Make the juice
In a saucepan, combine the apples and water, and boil covered until the apples break down.
Strain the mixture, pressing the apples to extract all the liquid.
Strain again through a finer cloth and let it cool.
Sweeten and serve
Sweeten with white sugar and serve chilled over ice.
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.
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Sour apples
- Provide the tart flavour and the pectin that gives the juice body.
- Sugar
- Balances the tartness of the apples and rounds out the flavour.
The step that matters
Boiling the apples until they break down. Cooking softens the apple cell walls so the juice can be pressed out. Undercooked apples yield less liquid and a thinner, rougher flavour.
“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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