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Dessert

Stewed Apples. No. 1

Stewed apples simmered with water, sugar, mace, and cloves, served cold with cream or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Apples. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Core and slice the apples.

  2. Place them in a saucepan and add just enough water to cover.

  3. Cover the saucepan and stew the apples until tender and clear.

Make the syrup

  1. Remove the apples and place them in a deep dish.

  2. Add 1 cup of loaf sugar to the juice in the saucepan and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Add a pinch of mace and the whole cloves 10 minutes before finishing.

  4. Pour the hot syrup over the apples and let them cool.

Serve

  1. Serve ice cold with cream or boiled custard.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Apple + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  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

Green tart apples
Provide the main fruit, which softens when stewed and holds its shape in the dish.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the apples and thickens the juice into a syrup as it boils.
Whole cloves
Add warm, spicy aroma to the syrup as it steeps.

The step that matters

Stewing the apples until tender and clear. Covered, gentle stewing softens the fruit evenly without breaking it apart. Stopping too early leaves the apples firm, while overcooking turns them mushy and cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More stewed apples recipes

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