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Dessert

Apples a LA Caramel

Apples à la Caramel are baked apples with caramel candies inside, topped with caramel syrup and optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apples a LA Caramel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Partially peel the apples in alternating rounds and remove the cores.

  2. Insert a caramel candy into the center of each apple.

  3. Sprinkle sugar over the outside of the apples.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the apples in a deep pan and bake.

  2. Baste with slightly sweetened water mixed with lemon juice.

  3. When the apples are tender, transfer them to a serving dish.

  4. Return the pan to the oven to thicken and brown the juice into caramel syrup.

  5. Pour the syrup over the apples and serve with or without 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Tart, juicy apples
Provide the main body, and their tartness balances the sweet caramel.
Caramel candies
Melt in the centre to add sweetness and build the sauce.
Sugar
Sprinkled on the outside, it caramelises and browns during baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet syrup and balances flavour.

The step that matters

Return the pan to the oven to thicken and brown the juice into caramel syrup.. The pan juices must reduce long enough to thicken and caramelise. Too short a time leaves a thin, pale syrup, while too long can scorch the sugars and turn it bitter.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cream. 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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