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Dessert

Apple Cake

A baked apple cake with layers of batter and apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Apple Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter, then add the eggs.

  3. Add the milk, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda to form a thick batter.

  5. Divide the batter into three layers in a prepared cake pan.

Make the filling

  1. Peel one apple and grate it.

  2. Grate the lemon peel.

  3. Squeeze the lemon juice.

  4. Grate the lemon pulp.

  5. Combine the lemon pulp with the grated apple, 1 cup of sugar, and egg white.

  6. Cook the filling in a tin cup until thoroughly heated.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the layers of cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the batter's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Cream of tartar
Acid that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thoroughly heated. Heating cooks the raw egg white, which thickens the grated apple and lemon mixture so it holds between the cake layers instead of running out.

Swap the apple

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

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

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