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Dessert

Apple Cakes

Apple cakes are small cakes made from stewed apples, sugar, lemon, butter, and nutmeg, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the apple mixture

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the apples.

  2. Stew the apples gently with sugar, lemon juice, lemon rind, butter, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

Bake and store

  1. Drop small rounds of the mixture onto a sheet of well-oiled paper.

  2. Place in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) and bake for about 15 minutes until firm.

  3. Store in a tin box.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk and moisture, softening into a pulp that sets the cake's body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it stews and sets.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Bake until firm. Baking at a low, cool oven dries the rounds slowly so they set firm without browning. Too hot an oven would scorch the outside before the centre dries.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, butter, nutmeg. 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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