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Baked Apples

A simple oven-baked apple dish served with white sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Clean the apples nicely.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the apples in the oven until the skin cracks and the pulp breaks through, about one hour.

  2. Serve the baked apples with white sugar sprinkled over them.

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 + 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
Provide the main body of the dish, softening into tender pulp as they bake.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and a touch of surface flavor when sprinkled over the baked apples.

The step that matters

Bake until the skin cracks and the pulp breaks through. Underbaked apples stay firm and tough, while the pulp only softens fully once its starches and cell walls have broken down with heat. Checking for a cracked skin and soft pulp tells you when they are done.

“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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