Name: Apple Sauce Cake
Ingredients: one cup sugar; one-half cup butter; one-half cups unsweetened; two teaspoons soda dissolved in sauce; one teaspoon cinnamon; one teaspoon nutmeg; one-half cup raisins; two cups flour; one-half tea- spoon cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Sauce Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the sauce.
Sift the flour and spices together, then add to the other ingredients.
Bake in a moderate oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

693Calories

14 gProtein

14 gFat

128 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Sauce	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Cinnamon + teatop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creams with sugar to add fat and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Unsweetened applesauce: Adds moisture and body, with the soda reacting in it to help the cake rise.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize it when creamed with butter.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, sauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, tea):

Raisinthe original
Vanillafits about as well
Figfits less well
Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, sauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, tea. 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.