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Dessert

Apple Filling

A sweet apple filling made with grated apples, sugar, butter, flour, water, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apple Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grate the apples and place them in a pot.

  2. Add sugar, butter, flour, water, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  3. Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

Butter and flour 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

Tart apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and its tart flavor once cooked down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the apples as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices so the filling sets rather than running.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor and balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Stirring during the cook. Flour settles and can clump or scorch on the bottom of the pot if the mixture is not stirred. Regular stirring keeps the thickener evenly dispersed so the filling cooks smoothly and sets uniformly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, walnut, butter, flour, lemon. 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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