Skip to main content
Dessert

Preserved Apples

Apples are stewed with sugar, water, cloves, and lemon, then bottled for winter use.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Preserved Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Core, peel, and slice the apples.

  2. Combine the apples with sugar, water, cloves, lemon rind, and lemon juice in a pot.

Cook and store

  1. Stew until the apples are clear.

  2. Transfer the mixture into wide-mouthed bottles or jars for winter use.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Pippins apples
Provide the bulk and main flavor, softening into a tender fruit mass as they stew.
Preserving sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, draws out water to help the preserve keep.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stew until the apples are clear. Apples turn translucent as the sugar syrup replaces their water. Stewing long enough lets the syrup concentrate, which helps the preserve keep for winter storage.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More preserved apples recipes

with Ginger 5for Tea 3 See all 47 →

You might also like

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