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Dessert

Flaming Apples

A dessert of boiled apples reduced to syrup and flambéed with rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Flaming Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the apples

  1. Peel the small apples and arrange them in a stewpan.

  2. Just cover the apples with water and add the grated rind, a little cinnamon, and plenty of sugar.

  3. Boil gently until the apples are cooked, being careful not to break them.

Plate and finish

  1. Cautiously take the apples one by one and arrange them in a pyramid shape on a dish.

  2. Keep the apples hot while you reduce the boiling water to a thick syrup.

  3. Pour the syrup over the apples and dust with sifted sugar.

  4. Sprinkle generously with rum and set on fire just 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. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Apple + rumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Small apples
Hold their shape as the main body of the dish, becoming tender while poaching.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when boiled into the poaching liquid, thickens it into a syrup.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavour when set alight just before serving.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the apples are cooked. A rolling boil can break the apples apart before they are tender. Gentle heat cooks them through while keeping their shape for the pyramid.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, sugar, rum. 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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