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Dessert

Black Caps Par Excellence

A baked apple dessert with lemon rind, candied orange peel, brown sugar, and sweet wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Black Caps Par Excellence

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the biffins in half without peeling them and scoop out the cores.

  2. Fill the cavities with thin strips of lemon rind and candied orange peel.

  3. Cover the bottom of a flat shallow tin with a thick layer of brown sugar.

  4. Press the two halves of each apple together and place them closely in the tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the wine over the apples, ensuring the tops are moistened.

  2. Sift white sugar thickly on top of the apples.

  3. Bake in a very hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until the outsides catch or become black.

  4. Then reduce the heat and bake gently until the apples are soft throughout.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Biffins (or other firm apples)
Firm flesh holds its shape while the interior softens during slow baking.
Fine pale brown sugar
Forms a thick syrup with the wine and caramelizes against the hot tin.
Raisin or other sweet wine
Moistens the apples and adds sweetness and fruity aroma as it reduces.
Candied orange peel
Adds concentrated citrus sweetness and aroma inside the cored apples.
White sugar
Sifted on top, it browns and forms a crisp, caramelized crust.

The step that matters

Bake in a very hot oven until the outsides catch. The sugar and skin must darken well at high heat to build caramelized flavor, but the heat must then be reduced so the centers cook through gently without the outsides burning bitterly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Cranberryfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, orange, 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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