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Baked Apples

A simple oven-baked apple dish with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Baked Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Wipe the apples clean and place them in a baking dish with the water.

  3. Bake for about 30 minutes or until tender.

Cool and serve

  1. Remove from the oven and let cool.

  2. Serve with moist or powdered loaf 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 + 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
Their flesh softens and turns tender as the heat breaks down cell walls, becoming the dish's main body.
Moist or powdered loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished apples at serving, balancing their natural tartness.

The step that matters

Bake until tender. Underbaked apples stay firm and starchy in the center, while overbaked apples collapse and turn mushy. Pierce the flesh with a knife to check that it gives easily before removing them from the oven.

“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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