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Dessert

Apple Cake

Apple cake is a baked dessert made with sugar, butter, raisins, spices, baking soda, apple sauce, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Apple Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the salt, cloves, raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and stir it into the apple sauce, letting it foam over the ingredients in the bowl.

  4. Beat all the ingredients together and then add the flour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 sour apple sauce to release gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake as it bakes.
Sour apple sauce
Adds moisture and acidity, which activates the baking soda.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps with browning and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda and stir it into the apple sauce. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it in warm water spreads it evenly so the cake rises uniformly rather than in pockets, and the sour apple sauce supplies the acid needed for that reaction.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, clove, raisin, cinnamon, 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.

More apple cake recipes

Dried 62Dutch 43German 12Molasses 9Filling 8Danish 4 See all 117 →

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