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Dessert

Apple Sauce Cake

A spiced cake made with apple sauce, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Sauce Cake

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 batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the apple sauce and let it foam.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, flour, shortening, raisins, salt, ground cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Add the foamed apple sauce to the mixture and stir until combined.

  4. If desired, add more fruit.

  5. Add a little water if the batter is too thick.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic apple sauce to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Apple sauce
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning during baking.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the apple sauce. Baking soda needs an acid to release gas. Letting it foam in the apple sauce before mixing starts the reaction early, so the leavening is active in the batter and helps the cake rise.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, raisin, clove, nutmeg, sauce. 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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