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Ill fllMscellancous Baked Apples

Baked apples filled with sugar, walnuts, and butter, served with a sugar‑water glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,035 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ill fllMscellancous Baked Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Core the apples and fill each one halfway with sugar.

  2. Add chopped walnut meat on top of the sugar in each apple.

  3. Place 1 tablespoon of butter on top of each apple.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking pan, add 4 tablespoons of sugar and ½ cup of boiling water.

  2. Place the apples in the pan and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. Serve with whipped cream.

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 + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Hold their shape as the flesh softens and turns tender in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps form a syrup with the pan water as it melts.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the apples brown slightly.
Walnut meat
Adds crunch and a nutty aroma that contrasts with the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water to the pan. The water in the pan creates steam and a syrup base that keeps the apples moist while they bake. Pouring it in cold or skipping it risks dry, scorched sugar on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the apple

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

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

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