Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓
Pommes Au Beurre
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Peel and core the apples without piercing them.
Fill the cavities with fresh butter.
Place the buttered apples in a single layer in a stewpan.
Stew
Stew the apples gently, turning occasionally, until they are almost tender.
Add sifted sugar to the stewpan.
Add pounded cinnamon to the stewpan.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon well with the fruit.
Stew for a few more minutes until tender.
Fill and serve
Arrange the apples in a hot dish.
Fill each apple with warm apricot jam.
Add a small amount of jam on top of each apple.
Pour the syrup from the pan around the apples.
Serve immediately.
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.
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Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together777 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Cinnamon + apricottop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together618 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 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
- Cooking apples
- Firm flesh holds its shape during gentle stewing and provides the main body of the dish.
- Butter
- Fat that fills the cavities, adding richness and a smooth, mellow flavour to the fruit.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, dissolving into the stewing juices, forms the syrup that coats the apples.
- Cinnamon
- Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the sweetness of the apples.
- Apricot jam
- Adds concentrated fruity sweetness and a glossy finish inside and on top of each apple.
The step that matters
Stewing gently until almost tender. Apples cooked too hard or too long can collapse into mush and lose their shape. Gentle heat and turning let the fruit soften evenly while holding its form, and the sugar dissolves into the juices to make the syrup.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, butter, sugar, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Pearfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Apricotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, sugar, cinnamon. 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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