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Dessert

Apple Cake

A baked cake with layers of batter and a sweet apple filling.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda to form a thick, soft batter.

  5. Divide the batter into three layers in a prepared pan.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, peel and grate one apple and the lemon peel.

  2. Squeeze the lemon juice and grate the pulp.

  3. Combine the grated apple, lemon, 1 cup of sugar, and egg white in a tin cup.

  4. Cook the mixture thoroughly over low heat until thickened.

  5. Spread the filling between the layers of 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake batter as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling thoroughly over low heat until thickened. Gentle heat lets the mixture thicken evenly as the egg white sets and the apple releases moisture. Heat that is too high can scorch or curdle the egg, leaving a lumpy or runny filling.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream, lemon. 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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