Name: Baked Apples
Ingredients: medium-sized apples; butter; white sugar; ground cinnamon; water; syrup or molasses; powdered mace or nutmeg

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 ↓

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).
Pare and core the apples, then place them in a baking dish.
Fill the cavities of the apples with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.
Add a little water to the bottom of the dish.
Pour syrup or molasses around the apples until the dish is nearly half filled.
Sprinkle powdered mace or nutmeg on top.
Cover the dish and bake for 30 minutes.
Uncover and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cinnamon + syruptop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together990 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Clovefits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, sugar, cinnamon, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.