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Dessert

Pommes Au Beurre, or Buttered Apples

A baked apple and bread dish with butter and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pommes Au Beurre, or Buttered Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Peel the apples and remove the cores without cutting through.

  2. Cut slices of bread to match the circumference of the apples.

  3. Butter a baking dish and place the bread slices in it.

  4. Set an apple on each slice of bread.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the core hole of each apple with white sugar.

  2. Place a piece of butter the size of a walnut in each hole.

  3. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 20 to 30 minutes, renewing the sugar and butter several times.

  4. Avoid burning the bread or losing the shape of the apples.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Hold their shape as the core is filled and softened gently in the oven, becoming tender and sweet.
Bread
Forms a base slice that soaks up butter and juices while supporting each apple.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting into the sugar and apple cavity to help browning.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and forms a syrup with melting butter and apple juices in the core.

The step that matters

Gentle oven baking. Baking at a low temperature softens the apples through without bursting their skins or collapsing their shape, while the bread browns slowly rather than burning. Renewing the sugar and butter keeps the cavity filled as the apples release juice.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applethe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, 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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