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Dessert

Danish Apple Cake

A baked apple cake with cinnamon, sugar, bread crumbs, and butter, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Danish Apple Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the apple sauce

  1. Stew the apples with minimal water until soft.

  2. Add cinnamon and sugar to taste.

Prepare the crumbs

  1. Toss the bread crumbs in melted butter and brown them lightly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the bottom of a greased cake tin with a thick layer of crumbs.

  2. Add a layer of apple sauce, then repeat until the pan is full.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Let cool, then turn out from the pan.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cooking apples
Cook down to a soft sauce that forms the moist filling layers.
Bread crumbs
Buttered and browned crumbs form the layers that soak up the apple sauce and add texture.
Butter
Coats the crumbs so they brown lightly and taste rich.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple sauce and balances the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Brown the crumbs lightly. Crumbs browned in butter develop a nutty flavour and firm texture; if they are pale or burnt, the layers turn soggy or bitter.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, sugar, bread, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, bread, butter, cream. 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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