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Dessert

Glazed Apples

A dessert of simmered apples glazed with apricot marmalade and red‑currant jelly, finished with angelica.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples.

Poach and glaze

  1. Simmer the apples gently in water with sugar and lemon juice until tender.

  2. Drain the apples well and pour a little syrup over them, then cover closely.

  3. Once cold, coat the apples with apricot marmalade.

  4. Fill the cavities with red-currant jelly.

  5. Decorate with strips or leaves of angelica.

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. Lemon + angelicatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Apricot + angelicatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Apple + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and texture that softens into a tender, cooked fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the apples keep their shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the poaching syrup and adds body to the glaze.
Apricot jam or marmalade
Gives a glossy coating and extra sweetness to the outside of the apples.
Red-currant jelly
Fills the cavities with a tart, set fruit flavour and a contrasting colour.

The step that matters

Drain well and cover closely. Excess water left on the apples dilutes the glaze and makes it slide off, while covering while still warm traps steam and keeps the fruit moist as it cools.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, sugar, apricot, angelica. 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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