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Dessert

Apples Stuffed with Nuts and Raisins

Apples stuffed with a mixture of nuts, raisins, sugar, and cinnamon, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Apples Stuffed with Nuts and Raisins

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

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

  2. Core the apples and place them in a baking dish.

  3. In a bowl, mix the chopped nuts, raisins, sugar, and cinnamon.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the cored apples.

  2. Top each apple with a small piece of butter.

  3. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the apples are tender.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Nuts + cinnamontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together487 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Apples
Provide the main body that softens and becomes tender as it bakes.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, rich flavor against the soft fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture inside the apples.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rich and caramelized as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that melts over the apples, adding richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Bake until the apples are tender. Underbaked apples stay firm and starchy, while overbaking makes them collapse. Checking for a fork-tender center ensures the flesh softens evenly without splitting.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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