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Dessert

Excellent Baked Apples

A baked apple dish with butter sauce and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Excellent Baked Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Pare and core the apples, then place them in a buttered baking dish.

  3. Fill the cavities of the apples with sugar.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, rub together ¼ cup of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour until smooth.

  2. Add enough boiling water to the butter mixture to make it thin enough to cover each apple.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the apples and grate nutmeg on top.

  2. Bake for one hour or more until tender.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Their flesh softens as they bake, becoming tender and sweet while holding their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour and giving it a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so the sauce clings to the apples instead of running off.
Sugar
Fills the cavities, sweetening the apples and drawing out juices as they bake.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water to the butter and flour. Water must be added gradually and enough to thin the paste. If it is too thick it will not coat the apples, and if too thin the sauce will not cling. Adding boiling water to the fat and flour mixture helps it blend smoothly without lumps.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, sauce, flour, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, sauce, flour, nutmeg. 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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