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Dessert

Apples a LA Cremone

A preserved apple dessert with sugar, lemon peel, cider, and isinglass jelly, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apples a LA Cremone

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Boil isinglass in water until it forms a jelly.

  2. Combine the jelly with strained apple water, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon peel; boil together.

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and cut apples into brick-shaped pieces.

  2. Strew sugar and lemon peel over the apples in a bowl; cover and let sit overnight.

  3. The next day, place apples in a preserving pan with sugar and cider; simmer gently.

  4. Remove apples as they become clear and let cool.

Serve

  1. Arrange apples on a small oval dish, placing lemon peel on top and pouring syrup in the middle.

  2. Serve with 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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apples
Hold their shape as the main body of the dish while softening and turning clear in syrup.
Isinglass
Sets the strained apple water and sugar into a clear, jelly-like syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, with long simmering, preserves the apples and helps them turn clear.
Strong cider
Adds acidic, fruity flavour to the apples as they simmer in the pan.

The step that matters

Simmering the apples gently. Gentle heat lets the sugar penetrate the apple pieces and make them clear without breaking them apart. Vigorous boiling can soften and tear the fruit, leaving it ragged instead of translucent.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cider, 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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