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Dessert

Apple Cake

Apple cake is a baked dessert made with flour, sugar, eggs, oil, apples, butter, and evaporated milk.

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

Why it works: Apple and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,501 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Add eggs, cooking oil, and apples; mix well.

  3. Pour into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes.

Make and spread the icing

  1. For icing, bring butter, brown sugar, and evaporated milk to a boil.

  2. Let cool, then spread icing on the 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. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pecans + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + evaporated milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pecans + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cake flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the batter so the cake rises and stays light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, keeps the crumb moist, and helps it brown.
Wesson oil
Keeps the cake moist and tender after it cools.
Raw cooking apples
Add moisture and fruity flavor as they cook through the batter.

The step that matters

Let the cake cool before spreading the icing. A warm cake softens the icing, which then melts and soaks in instead of sitting on top. Cooling lets the crumb firm up so the icing stays in an even layer.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Pumpkinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pecans, egg, sugar, butter, vanilla, evaporated milk. 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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Dried 62Dutch 43German 12Molasses 9Filling 8Danish 4 See all 117 →

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