Name: Stuffed Apples
Ingredients: good baking apples; chopped dates; chopped nuts; chopped figs; whipped cream; cherries; lady fingers

Why it works: Dates and fig work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Stuffed 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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Hollow out the cores of the baking apples.
Stuff the apples with a mixture of chopped dates, nuts, and figs.
Place the stuffed apples in a baking dish and bake until tender.
Serve with whipped cream and a cherry on top of each apple.
Enjoy with lady fingers.

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.

Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + figtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together238 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + datestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together119 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nuts + figtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Dates + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together178 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).