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Dessert

Apple Schmarren

Apple Schmarren is a fried dough cake with apples, served dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Schmarren

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, milk, salt, and beaten egg to create a batter.

  2. Slice the apple and fold it into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard in a frying pan.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan and fry until golden brown.

  3. Serve warm, dusted with powdered sugar.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Pastry flour
Forms the structure of the batter that holds the pancake together.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pancake as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads in the pan.
Apple
Adds moisture and a fruity sweetness that contrasts with the savory batter.
Clear lard
Conducts heat into the batter and promotes golden browning in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the batter until golden brown. The batter is thin and the apple adds moisture, so it can stick or burn in an under-heated or overheated pan. Heating the lard first gives an even, golden crust and helps the batter set rather than steam.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, 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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