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Dessert

Fried Apples

Fried apples are sliced apples soaked in brandy, lemon juice, and powdered sugar, then coated in flour and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fried Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples, then cut them into thin round slices.

  2. In a deep dish, mix the brandy, lemon juice, and powdered sugar.

  3. Soak the apple slices in the mixture for several hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Drain the slices and dip each one in flour.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Fry the apple slices until golden brown.

  4. Serve the apples.

  5. Grate loaf sugar over them.

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 + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 texture of the dish, softening slightly while staying in slices.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while soaking the apple slices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples brown when fried.
Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the apple slices crisp and brown in the pan.
Butter
Provides fat for frying, adding richness and browning the slices.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat in melted butter browns the flour coating and sugars without burning them. Drain the slices well first so excess moisture does not steam them and stop them from crisping.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, brandy, sugar, flour, butter. 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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