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Dessert

Stewed Apples

Stewed apples simmered with sugar, spice, and lemon, then served cold with optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Stewed Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Peel the apples and scoop out the cores.

  2. In a skillet, combine the apples, sugar, clove, cinnamon, lemon zest, lemon juice, and cold water.

  3. Simmer gently for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, skimming frequently until the apples are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully remove the apples and place them on a glass dish.

  2. Boil the syrup for 10 minutes, then strain it over the apples.

  3. Serve cold, optionally topped with whipped cream or Devonshire cream.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dessert apples
Provide the main body of the dish, softening into a tender, spoonable fruit during simmering.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the dish and, as it dissolves, builds the syrup that coats the apples.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps keep the apples' colour fresh.
Cinnamon stick
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Apples cooked at a hard boil break apart and turn mushy before they soften through. A gentle simmer lets the pieces hold their shape while the heat reaches the centre. Skimming keeps the syrup clear.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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