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Dessert

Baked Apples

A simple oven-baked apple dish with sugar, butter, cinnamon, and optional water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut out the blossoms and stems of the tart apples.

  3. Pare and core the apples for richer flavor.

  4. Alternatively, quarter and core the apples without peeling.

Fill and bake

  1. Place some sugar in the cavity of the apples.

  2. Fill the cavity with butter and sugar.

  3. Sprinkle the apples with cinnamon.

  4. Place the quartered apples in a baking dish.

  5. Sprinkle the apples with sugar and bits of butter.

  6. Add a little water.

  7. Bake the apples until soft, about 1-2 hours.

  8. Bake until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with cream or milk.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Tart apples
Provide the main body and tart flavor that holds shape while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apple flesh caramelize as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavor through the baked apple.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic flavor that complements the baked apple.

The step that matters

Bake until tender. Apples need enough heat and time for their starch and cell walls to soften fully. Underbaking leaves them firm, while overbaking can make them collapse and lose shape.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cinnamon. 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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