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Ginger Apples

Apples cooked with ginger and sugar in a syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ginger Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Pare and core the Newtown pippins apples.

  2. Place the apples in cold water to preserve their color.

  3. In a stew pan, combine ½ cup water and ¼ cup sugar for each pound of fruit.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cook the apples

  1. Remove the apples from the cold water.

  2. Add the apples to the boiling syrup.

  3. Add 1 ounce and ¾ ounce of cleaned ginger for each pound of fruit.

  4. Boil until the apples become clear, about an hour or less.

Store

  1. Transfer the apples to a jar.

  2. Cover tightly.

  3. Store in a cool, dry place.

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 + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Newtown pippins apples
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and clear in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and syrup and helps preserve the apples.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma and flavor to the apples.

The step that matters

Boil until the apples become clear. Boiling the apples in syrup until they turn clear shows the sugar has penetrated the fruit. Stopping too early leaves them underdone and less preserved, while overcooking can make them collapse and turn mushy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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