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Dessert

Apple Cake, or German Tart

A baked apple cake with a buttery crust and a marmalade filling of apples, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Cake, or German Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry

  1. Work together with the fingers, ten ounces of butter and a pound of flour, until they resemble fine crumbs of bread; throw in a small pinch of salt, and make them into a firm smooth paste with the yolks of two eggs and a spoonful or two of water.

  2. Butter thickly a plain tin cake or pie mould.

  3. Roll out the paste thin.

  4. Place the mould upon the paste and trim to exact size.

  5. Cover the bottom of the mould with paste.

  6. Cut a band the height of the sides and press it smoothly round them.

  7. Moisten the edge with egg or water and join it to the bottom crust.

  8. Fasten a narrow and thin band of paste, also moistened, to prevent separation.

Make the apple marmalade

  1. Boil together, over a gentle fire at first, but more quickly afterwards, three pounds of good apples with fourteen ounces of pounded sugar, or of the finest Lisbon, the strained juice of a large lemon, three ounces of fresh butter, and a teaspoonful of pounded cinnamon, or the lightly grated rind of a couple of lemons.

  2. When the whole is perfectly smooth and dry, turn it into a pan to cool, and let it be quite cold before it is put into the paste.

  3. In early autumn, a larger proportion of sugar may be required, but this can be regulated by the taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Next, fill the mould nearly from the brim with the following marmalade, which must be quite cold when it is put in.

  2. When the mould is filled, roll out the cover, lay it carefully over the marmalade that it may not touch it.

  3. When the cake is securely closed, trim off the superfluous paste.

  4. Add a little pounded sugar to the parings, spread them out very thin, and cut them into leaves to ornament the top of the cake.

  5. Bake it for an hour in a moderately brisk oven.

  6. Take it from the mould, and if the sides are not sufficiently coloured, put it back for a few minutes into the oven upon a baking tin.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

863Calories
26 gProtein
24 gFat
136 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Apple1 medium (182g)95
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Eggs1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

  1. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Butter
Makes the pastry short and tender and adds richness to the marmalade.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry that holds the marmalade.
Eggs
Bind the pastry dough and help seal the crust edges.
Apples
Cook down to form the thick filling of the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade filling and the pastry leaves.
Lemon juice (in the method)
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet apple filling.

The step that matters

Let the marmalade cool completely before filling. Warm filling softens the raw paste and can make the crust collapse or become soggy during baking, so it must be quite cold when placed in the mould.

Swap the apple

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

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

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