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Dessert

Apples in Pancakes

Apples in Pancakes is a dessert of stewed apples spread on pancakes and rolled, topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apples in Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the apples into small pieces.

  2. Stew the apples with a little white wine, grated lemon peel, ground cinnamon, and brown sugar.

  3. Mash the stewed apples and spread them over the pancakes.

Serve

  1. Roll up the pancakes and serve with sifted powdered sugar on top.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provide the bulk of the soft, sweet-tart filling once stewed and mashed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise slightly as they stew.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the apple filling.
Pancakes
Act as the edible wrapper that holds the filling when rolled.

The step that matters

Stew the apples until soft. If the apples stay firm or the liquid is not reduced, the filling will be watery and may soak through the pancakes. Cooking them until tender and mashable gives a thick, spreadable filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, white wine, cinnamon, 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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