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Dessert

Apple Sauce Cake

A moist cake made with apple sauce, butter, sugar, flour, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the apple sauce and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour and spices together.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to trap air, and adds sweetness and browning.
Apple sauce
Adds moisture that keeps the cake soft and tender.
Baking soda
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.. Mixing the flour in gently and only until combined limits gluten development. Overmixing makes the cake tough and dense, while gradual addition helps the batter blend evenly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applethe original
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, sauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, raisin. 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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