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Dessert

Fannie's Apple Cake

A yeast-leavened apple cake with butter, sugar, and lemon rind, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fannie's Apple Cake

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.

Make the sponge

  1. Combine lukewarm milk, yeast, sugar, salt, and enough flour to make a stiff sponge in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture rise for 3 hours.

Make the dough

  1. Cream sugar and butter together.

  2. Add eggs one at a time, beating until light.

  3. Mix in the grated lemon rind.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the sponge.

  5. Add enough flour to roll out the dough without making it tough.

  6. Roll the dough very thin on a floured surface.

  7. Place the dough in well-greased pans.

  8. Let it rise again.

Top and bake

  1. Once risen, cover the dough with the apple slices, packing them closely.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Pour melted butter over the top.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Add richness and structure, and when beaten they lighten the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the dough and topping.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, making the dough light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Apples
Provide moisture and fruity flavour as they bake into the top layer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin without toughening it. Adding too much flour or overworking the dough develops gluten and makes the cake tough, so flour should be added only as needed and the dough handled gently.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, 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.

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