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Dessert

Dutch Apple Cake

A baked apple cake with eggs, milk, butter, flour, baking powder, and apples, topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Separate the eggs.

  2. Add the yolks to the milk, melted butter, and salt. Mix well.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add to the mixture. Beat quickly.

  4. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites and pour into a greased baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Arrange the quartered apples on top, rounded sides up, and dust with powdered sugar.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes or until the apples are tender.

  3. Serve with rich cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Egg whites whipped and folded in give the cake lift, while yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and works with the flour and eggs to form the batter's body.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
Apples
Soften during baking and add moisture and fruity sweetness to the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that expands in the oven. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter; stirring vigorously deflates it and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the apple

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

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

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