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Apple Cake, or German Tart

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 Cake, or German Tart

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, work together the butter and flour with your fingers until they resemble fine bread crumbs.

  2. Add a small pinch of coarse sea salt and mix in the egg yolks and water to form a firm, smooth paste.

  3. Butter a plain tin cake or pie mold generously.

  4. Roll out the paste thinly and place the mold on it, trimming to size.

  5. Cover the bottom of the mold with the paste, then cut a band for the sides and press it smoothly around them.

  6. Moisten the edge with egg or water to join it to the bottom crust.

  7. Stick a narrow band of moistened paste around the sides to prevent separation.

  8. Fill the mold nearly to the brim with cold marmalade.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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