Name: Apple Sauce Cake, Spiced
Ingredients: one-half cups apple sauce; one-half cup butter; one cup sugar; one cup raisins; two teaspoons soda dissolved in two tablespoons hot water; one-half cups flour; two tablespoons hot water

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Sauce Cake, Spiced

Ingredients

Directions

One and one-half cups apple sauce, one-half cup butter or lard, one cup sugar, one cup raisins, two teaspoons soda dissolved in two tablespoons hot water, two and one-half cups flour, spices. Mrs. R. McGinnis.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

763Calories

14 gProtein

13 gFat

149 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Apple Sauce	1 medium (182g)	95
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Water	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.

By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, sugar, raisin, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.