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To Stew Apples for Tarts

Stewed apples mixed with lemon, cinnamon, and sweeteners to produce a pulp for tart filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Stew Apples for Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pulp

  1. Pare, core, and cut the apples into quarters.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with lemon peel, water, and cinnamon stick.

  3. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat until the apples dissolve.

  4. Sweeten with sifted sugar and add syrup of quinces, then rub through a fine sieve.

  5. Let the pulp cool before using it in the tart.

Variation

  1. For a finer tart, stew golden pippins the same way, adding syrup of cloves and pineapple jam after sieving.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cinnamon + quincetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into the pulp that forms the body and flavour of the filling.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the pulp and balances the tartness of the apples.
Pineapple jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the finer variation's pulp.

The step that matters

Cover the pan and cook over medium heat until the apples dissolve. Gentle covered heat softens the apples with their own moisture so they break down into a smooth pulp without scorching. Too much heat or an uncovered pan can burn the bottom and leave the texture uneven before sieving.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, cinnamon, sugar, syrup, quince, clove, pineapple):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, sugar, syrup, quince, clove, pineapple. 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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