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Dessert

Boiled Apples

A dish of whole apples boiled with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the apples and cut off the stems, but do not core or peel them.

  2. Place the apples in a kettle with plenty of boiling water.

Cook

  1. When the apples are partly cooked, add sugar to taste.

  2. Boil moderately until the apples are fully cooked; they will remain whole.

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 + 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

Apples
Provide the main body of the dish; leaving skins and cores on helps them hold their shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, added partway through cooking so it is tasted as the apples soften.

The step that matters

Boil moderately until fully cooked. Vigorous boiling can split the skins and break the apples apart. Moderate heat cooks the flesh through gradually while the unpeeled, uncored fruit stays whole.

“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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