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Dessert

To Make Apple-sauce

A cooked apple sauce made with apples, water, butter, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Apple-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the apples

  1. Pare, quarter, and core the apples into a saucepan.

  2. Add water and cover the saucepan.

  3. Cook over low heat for about 2 hours.

  4. Check the apples periodically until they are soft.

Finish the sauce

  1. Remove excess water and mash the apples.

  2. Stir in the butter and powdered sugar.

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 + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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
Break down into soft pulp that forms the body of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the warm, mashed apples.

The step that matters

Cooking over low heat until soft. Gentle, slow heat softens the apples evenly without scorching the bottom of the pan. Checking periodically helps you stop once they are soft, since the water is limited and the sauce can dry out or stick if left unattended.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

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