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Dessert

Baked Apples

A simple baked apple dish with sugar, lemon or cinnamon, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Wipe the apples.

  2. Core the apples.

  3. Score the apples.

Fill and bake

  1. Place the apples in a baking dish.

  2. Fill each center with sugar.

  3. Add lemon juice or the cinnamon and sugar mixture.

  4. Place a small piece of butter on each apple.

  5. Pour ¾ cup water around the apples.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until soft, about 30 to 45 minutes.

  7. Baste the apples every 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Lift the apples out to a serving dish.

  2. Pour the juice over the apples.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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 + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Apples
Hold their shape while softening, becoming tender and sweet as they cook.
Sugar
Fills the centers and sweetens the apples, helping form a syrupy juice as it dissolves.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the juices taste rounded and the apples brown slightly.
Water
Creates steam and liquid in the dish so the apples cook gently and stay moist.

The step that matters

Bake until soft, basting every 10 minutes. Apples are done when a knife slides through easily. Basting keeps the surfaces moist and spreads the syrupy juices over the fruit, so the apples cook evenly without drying out.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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