Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Baked 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Core the apples and fill the cavity with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and currants.
Optionally, fill the cavity with honey and cloves before baking.
Bake
Place a little water in a shallow pan and add the apples.
Top each apple with a small piece of butter for basting.
Prick the apple skin with a skewer.
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.
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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
-
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,774 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Apple + honeytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together569 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Cinnamon + honeytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
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 of the dish, softening into a tender, spoonable flesh when baked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and melts to baste the apples as they cook.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling caramelize slightly in the cavity.
- Currants
- Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture within the filling.
The step that matters
Prick the apple skin with a skewer. Piercing the skin lets steam escape as the apple heats, so the skin does not split or burst in the oven and the flesh cooks evenly.
Swap the clove
The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, butter, sugar, cinnamon, currant, honey):
- Clovethe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Gingerfits about as well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, sugar, cinnamon, currant, honey. 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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