Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. 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.
Prepare
Wash the apples and place them whole in a baking dish.
Sprinkle the apples with sugar and add a little water.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until quite soft.
Fill and finish
Cut out the stem of each apple to create a small cavity and fill it with sugar.
Arrange the apples in the dish with the stem end up.
Sprinkle more sugar on top and add a slice of lemon over each apple.
Ensure there is enough water to create a sauce.
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 + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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 softening, and their juices help form the sauce.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves into the juices to form a syrupy sauce.
The step that matters
Bake until quite soft. Heat softens the apple's cell walls and pectin, so underbaked apples stay firm. The sauce depends on juices released as the apples cook, so the baking must be long enough to draw them out.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar):
- Pearfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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