Skip to main content
Sauce

Apple Jelly Sauce

A sauce made from apple jelly, butter, lemon juice, nutmeg, powdered sugar, and wine, heated and stirred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Jelly Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Whip the apple jelly until thin and smooth.

  2. Gradually add the melted butter, lemon juice, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Place the mixture in a bowl inside a saucepan of boiling water.

  4. Heat to boiling, stirring steadily.

  5. Beat in the powdered sugar and wine.

Hold and serve

  1. Cover and let it stand in the boiling water until needed, stirring occasionally and beating well before serving.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple jelly
Provides the sweet, fruity base and body of the sauce.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the jelly.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the butter gradually. Fat added quickly to a warm, watery mixture can separate instead of emulsifying. Adding it slowly while stirring helps the butter disperse evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, lemon, sugar, wine. 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesHot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipes