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Apples Stewed Whole

Whole apples stewed in water, sweetened with sugar and spiced with mace or cloves, served with optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apples Stewed Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Core the apples using an apple corer or small knife.

  2. Place the apples in a deep dish and add enough water to cover them.

Steam and make the syrup

  1. Steam the apples until tender and clear.

  2. Carefully remove the apples and place them in a dish, covering to keep hot.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the juice from the apples with 1 cup of sugar and boil until syrupy.

  4. Add a little mace or whole cloves and boil for an additional 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the syrup over the apples.

  2. Cover the apples until cold.

  3. Serve with cream if desired.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  4. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Apples
Provide the main body and texture, softening into a tender fruit when steamed.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and thickens it into a syrup when boiled down.

The step that matters

Steaming the apples until tender and clear. Steaming too briefly leaves the apples firm and cloudy, while overcooking breaks them down. Stop once a knife slides in easily and the flesh looks translucent.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cream. 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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