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Dessert

Apple Kuchen

Apple Kuchen is a German apple cake made with thin dough, sliced apples, sugar, cinnamon, butter, egg, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Kuchen

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a well-greased pie plate or biscuit tin with thin Kuchen dough.

Assemble

  1. Arrange the apple slices on the dough in even rows.

  2. Sprinkle the apples thickly with sugar and lightly with cinnamon.

  3. Dot the top with bits of butter.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg with the cream and sugar, then pour over the apples.

Bake

  1. Bake until the apples are soft.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 the fruit filling that softens and becomes tender in the oven.
Egg
Helps the cream and sugar mixture set into a custard around the apples.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the custard topping.
Butter
Adds fat and richness as it melts over the apples.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them caramelise slightly as they bake.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, butter, egg, cream. 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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