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Dessert

Spiced Apples

A sweet and spicy apple dish simmered with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Spiced Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine water, vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

Cook the apples

  1. Wash, peel, and core the apples.

  2. Place the apples in the saucepan and pour the boiled vinegar mixture over them.

  3. Cover and boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove the cover and simmer until the apples are tender, keeping the spices among 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and bulk, softening into tender pieces as they simmer.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth that balances the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sweet syrup a sharp, tangy edge.

The step that matters

Simmer until the apples are tender. Simmering uncovered lets the syrup reduce and thicken while the apples soften. Stopping too early leaves firm apples, and cooking too long turns them mushy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Applethe original

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