Skip to main content
Dessert

Apples a LA Cremone

Apples a la Cremone is a preserved apple dish with sugar, lemon peel, cider, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Prepare 1½ pounds of clear‑looking apples by peeling and cutting them into brick‑shaped pieces.

  2. Strew 1 pound of sugar and lemon peel strips over the apples in a bowl and cover them.

Make the syrup

  1. The next day, place the apples in a small preserving pan with the sugar and 2 tablespoons of strong cider.

  2. Simmer gently until the apple pieces become clear, then remove them.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, arrange the apples on a small oval dish, placing lemon peel on top and pouring syrup into the center.

  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. 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. Lemon + cidertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together986 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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
Form the main body of the dish, turning translucent as they cook in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and draws water out of the apples to form a syrup.
Strong cider
Adds acidity and fruity aroma to the syrup.
Lemon peel
Adds a bright aromatic citrus flavour that infuses the apples and syrup.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until the apples turn clear. Gentle heat lets sugar syrup penetrate the apple pieces slowly so they turn clear and hold their shape. A hard boil can break the pieces apart and make the syrup cloudy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes