Why it works: Apple and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Baked Apples
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a baking dish with butter.
Layer thin slices of apples in the dish.
Add a layer of stewed plums on top.
Sprinkle sugar over the layers.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full.
Bake in the preheated oven until the fruit is tender.
Serve with whipped cream around the dish.
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.
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Apple + plumtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together404 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + plumtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together710 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
Swap the plum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, apple, sugar):
- Pearfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits about as well
- Plumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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