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Dessert

Apple Torte

A baked apple cake with almonds, eggs, butter, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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.

Make the filling

  1. Boil and sift the apples.

  2. Chop the blanched almonds.

  3. In a bowl, mix the apples, almonds, 5 egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, flour, and lemon juice.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

Make the dough

  1. For the dough, cream the butter with sugar, then add flour and baking powder.

  2. Add the egg yolks and vanilla to the dough mixture.

Bake

  1. Combine the apple mixture with the dough and pour into a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Apples
Provide moisture and the main fruity flavour, keeping the torte tender.
Almonds
Add body and a nutty texture to the filling.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, as whipped whites, help it rise and set.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through its fat.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the torte together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven to lift the dough.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Beaten whites trap air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously or folding too long deflates the foam, leaving a denser torte. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, egg, sugar, lemon, flour, butter, vanilla. 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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