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Dessert

Apple Sauce Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add salt, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and stir it into the apple sauce, then let the mixture foam over the other ingredients in the bowl.

  4. Beat thoroughly and add the flour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 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. Cinnamon + appletop 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.
Baking soda
Reacts with the apple sauce to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown its surface and keep it moist.
Apple sauce
Adds moisture and fruit flavor, and its acidity activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and folding it into the apple sauce. Baking soda needs moisture and an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully and mixing it into the acidic apple sauce before adding flour spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises uniformly instead of leaving dense or soapy patches.

Swap the apple

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

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

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