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Another Way to Bake Apples

Apples are baked with cloves, sugar, and madeira or sherry until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Another Way to Bake Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Pare the apples as thinly as possible, keeping the stalks.

  2. Stick 2-3 cloves into each apple.

Bake

  1. Place the apples in a deep dish and sprinkle with pounded sugar.

  2. Pour the madeira or sherry over the apples.

  3. Cover the dish closely and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until tender.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Good eating apples
Provide the fruit that softens and turns tender as it bakes.
Pounded loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise slightly in the syrup.
Madeira or sherry
Adds moisture and a rich, fortified wine flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Covering the dish closely while baking. Keeping the dish covered traps steam so the apples cook through and become tender in the slow oven, rather than drying out at the surface.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, sherry. 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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