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Dessert

Economical Apple Sauce Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Economical Apple Sauce 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the apple sauce and hot water, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the baking soda, cloves, and cinnamon.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped walnuts and raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or 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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Walnut + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

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

  5. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to add fat and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Apple sauce
Adds moisture and natural fruit sweetness to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic apple sauce to lift the batter as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined. Overmixing flour develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stopping as soon as the flour is incorporated keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sauce, butter, walnut, meat, raisin, clove. 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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