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Dessert

Eggless Applesauce Cake

A moist cake made with applesauce, raisins, and spices, baked without eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Eggless Applesauce Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the applesauce and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in water and add to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, and lemon juice until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and browned.
Applesauce
Provides moisture and apple flavor in place of eggs.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic lemon juice and applesauce to help the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the batter. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter spots or uneven rising, and it reacts with the acidic ingredients to lift the cake.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin. 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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