Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Baked Apples
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cut out the stem and flower end of the apples, but do not peel them.
Wash the apples and place them in a pie dish.
Fill the cavities of the apples with sugar and sprinkle some sugar over the tops.
Place pieces of butter on each apple.
Pour a little boiling water into the dish.
Bake until the apples are tender.
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 + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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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
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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