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Apple Soup, No. 1

A sweet apple soup flavored with lemon peel, cinnamon, and white wine, served with zwieback.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Apple Soup, No. 1

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,598 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Soup, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Peel and stew 8 apples until soft.

  2. Sieve the apples and sweeten with sugar.

  3. Add 1 quart of water, lemon peel, cinnamon, and cornstarch.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes, then remove the cinnamon and lemon peel.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Cook the apple pieces

  1. Peel and core 4 large apples, cut each into 8 parts.

  2. Boil the apple pieces in sugar syrup until tender, without breaking them.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the cooked apple pieces in a tureen.

  2. Strain the syrup and pour it with the soup and ½ pint of white wine over the apples.

  3. Serve with zwieback.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,779 recipes mention both: they likely 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 bulk of the soup and, when cut into pieces, the tender fruit garnish.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sieved apple liquid as it boils, giving the soup body.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet apple flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the soup and the syrup used to cook the apple pieces.

The step that matters

Boil the apple pieces in sugar syrup until tender, without breaking them.. Apples soften quickly once heated, and over-boiling breaks down their cell walls so the pieces fall apart. Gentle simmering keeps them intact while cooking them through.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, cinnamon, sugar, syrup, white wine):

  1. Pearbetter flavor fit
  2. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  3. Plumbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, sugar, syrup, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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