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Dried Apple Sauce

A sauce made by boiling dried apples and raisins with water, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Dried Apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place dried apples and raisins in a crock and cover with plenty of water.

  2. Set the crock on the back of the stove and let it boil slowly all day.

  3. When almost done, add the lemon sliced very thin and the sugar.

  4. Stir well and continue to cook until fully done.

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 + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide the main body and pectin that thicken the sauce as it softens and breaks down.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a soft, chewy texture that blends into the sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce thicken and become glossy as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar and lemon near the end. Sugar added early can slow the softening of dried fruit, and thin lemon slices cook quickly and can turn bitter if overcooked. Adding them when the apples are nearly done keeps the flavor bright and the texture even.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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