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Dessert

Apple Sauce

Apple sauce made by cooking apples with sugar, gelatin, and optional cinnamon or lemon, then set in the refrigerator.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple sauce

  1. Cook the apples until very tender, then stir thoroughly to remove lumps.

  2. Add sugar and dissolved gelatine in warm water (1 tablespoon per pint of sauce).

Set and serve

  1. Pour the sauce into bowls and refrigerate until it sets like jelly.

Cider apple sauce

  1. For the cider apple sauce, boil 4 quarts of cider until reduced to 2 quarts.

  2. Add pared and quartered apples to the cider and stew over moderate heat for 4 hours.

  3. Add cinnamon if desired.

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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Green apples
Break down into soft pulp that forms the body of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apples.
Gelatine
Sets the sauce into a jelly-like texture when chilled.
Cider
Adds liquid and concentrated apple flavour as it reduces and stews.

The step that matters

Stirring the cooked apples. Stirring thoroughly while the apples are very tender breaks them into a smooth pulp and removes lumps, giving the sauce an even texture before the gelatine is added.

“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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