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Dessert

Baked Apples

Baked apples are apples baked with sugar, lemon juice, and water, optionally spiced with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wipe, core, and peel the sour apples.

  2. Place them in a baking dish and fill the cavities with sugar.

Add flavorings and liquid

  1. Add 6 drops of lemon juice to each apple.

  2. Cover the bottom of the dish with boiling water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until soft, basting every 8 minutes with the syrup in the dish.

  2. If desired, mix a few gratings of nutmeg with the sugar for added flavor.

  3. Serve hot or cold, with or without sugar and 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Sour apples
Provide the main body, which softens during baking while holding its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and dissolves into a syrup that glazes the fruit as it bakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Boiling water
Creates moisture in the dish and mixes with the sugar to form the basting syrup.

The step that matters

Bake until soft, basting every 8 minutes. Apples must cook through to become tender at the core, and regular basting keeps the flesh moist while the sugar and juices form a glossy syrup instead of drying out or scorching.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, lemon. 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 baked apples recipes

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