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Dessert

Glazed Apples

A dessert of boiled apples glazed with apricot jam syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Glazed Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the apples

  1. Select 6 apples of equal size, then peel and core them.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan and add enough water to cover them halfway.

  3. Add the cloves and fill the centers of the apples with sugar.

  4. Simmer gently until the apples are tender, then carefully lift them out into a dish.

Make the glaze

  1. In a separate pan, combine ¾ cup sugar, apricot jam, and 2 tablespoons of the water used to boil the apples.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then strain through a fine sieve.

Glaze and serve

  1. Pour the syrup over the apples and decorate with cherries.

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 + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + apricottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 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

Apples
Hold their shape while simmering and carry the sweet syrup as the main body of the dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and, boiled into syrup, forms the glaze.
Apricot jam
Adds fruity flavor and body to the glaze, helping it cling to the apples.
Cloves
Adds warm, spiced aroma to the poaching liquid and apples.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the apples are tender. Vigorous boiling can split the skins and break the apples apart, while gentle simmering softens the flesh evenly so they keep their shape for glazing.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, apricot. 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 glazed apples recipes

with Preserved Ginger 3 See all 4 →

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