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Dessert

Apples À LA Cremone

Whole-cut apples simmered in cider and syrup, set on a clear isinglass jelly and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apples À LA Cremone

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil isinglass in water until it forms a jelly.

  2. Combine the jelly with strained apple water and add sugar, lemon juice, and lemon peel.

  3. Boil the mixture and pour it into a dish, removing the peel.

Poach the apples

  1. Choose clear apples, cut them into brick-shaped pieces, and strew with sugar and lemon peel in a bowl.

  2. The next day, place the apples in a small pan with sugar and cider, and simmer gently.

  3. As the apples become clear, remove them from the pan.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, arrange the apples on a small oval dish, placing lemon peel on top and pouring syrup in the middle.

  2. Serve with cream.

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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + cidertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together986 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 poaching and become clear and tender in the syrup.
Isinglass
Sets the water and apple liquid into a clear jelly around the fruit.
Lisbon sugar
Sweetens the jelly and syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Cider
Adds acidity and fruity aroma to the poaching syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer the apples gently. Gentle heat lets the apple pieces turn clear and tender while holding their shape. Vigorous boiling would break them down and make the syrup cloudy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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