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Dessert

Apple Torte

A pastry with a buttery crust, almond topping, and apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Torte

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.

Prepare the crust

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

  2. Cream the butter with 2 ounces of sugar.

  3. Add 1 egg. Add 2 extra yolks. Add 1 tablespoon of water.

  4. Mix in the flour to form a paste.

  5. Roll out the paste and line the bottom and sides of a shallow cake tin.

  6. Bake for a few minutes, but do not fully bake.

Add the filling

  1. Grate the almonds and mix them with 2 tablespoons of sour cream.

  2. Spread the almond mixture on the partially baked crust.

  3. Sprinkle with grated bread crumbs.

  4. Peel and slice the apples thinly.

  5. Mix the sliced apples with currants and 4 ounces of sugar.

  6. Place the apple mixture on top of the bread crumbs.

  7. Beat together ½ cup of sour cream, 4 yolks, and a little sugar.

  8. Pour the mixture over the apples.

Bake

  1. Return to the oven.

  2. Finish baking until set.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to give the crust a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the crust together.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the crust and the custard topping as they set.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a slight tang to the almond layer and the custard topping.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness that contrast with the sweet custard.
Sweet almonds
Form a moist, nutty layer that softens the crust beneath the apples.

The step that matters

Partially bake the crust. Baking the crust only briefly sets it without browning it fully, so it can finish baking under the wet almond and custard layers without turning soggy or tough.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg, almond, apple, 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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