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Dessert

Apple Gems

A baked apple cake made with apples, molasses, cornmeal, flour, and soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Gems

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. Chop the sour apples very fine.

Make the batter

  1. Stir the chopped apples into a bowl with the beaten egg, molasses, cornmeal, and sifted flour.

  2. Dissolve the Magic Soda in warm water and add it to the mixture, using enough water to thin the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into buttered gem pans.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sour apples
Provide moisture, tartness, and body to the batter.
Beaten egg
Binds the batter and helps give the gems structure as they set.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep colour that helps browning.
Cornmeal
Gives the gems their coarse, crumbly texture and structure.
Sifted flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape when baked.
Magic soda
Leavens the batter so the gems rise and turn out lighter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the Magic Soda and thinning the batter. The soda is the leavener, so it must be evenly dissolved and mixed through the batter. Too little water leaves the batter stiff and uneven, while the rising begins as soon as the soda meets the acidic ingredients, so the batter should go into the pans promptly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, molasses, flour, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, flour, butter. 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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