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Dessert

Dutch Apple Cake

A baked apple cake with a buttery batter, apples, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Dutch Apple Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  3. Rub in the butter and beaten egg, then mix with the milk.

Make and bake

  1. Spread the batter in a greased long pan, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Pare and slice the apples into small pieces, then lay them in rows on top of the batter. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. For added flavor, serve with a sauce made from the yolk of an egg, milk, sugar, and vanilla.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give it structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps it rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acid that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Apples
Add moisture and fruitiness to the top layer as they bake.

The step that matters

Get the batter into the oven soon after mixing. Baking soda and cream of tartar start producing gas as soon as they are moistened. Waiting too long before baking lets some of that gas escape, which can leave the cake flatter and denser.

Swap the apple

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

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

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