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Dessert

Apple Cake, or German Tart

A baked apple tart with a buttery crust and spiced apple filling.

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 ↓

Apple Cake, or German Tart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, work together the butter and flour until they resemble fine crumbs.

  3. Add a pinch of salt, egg yolks, and water to form a smooth paste.

  4. Butter a pie mold and roll out the paste thinly.

  5. Trim the paste to fit the mold, covering the bottom and sides.

  6. Moisten the edges with water or egg to join them.

Make the filling

  1. In a pot, boil the apples, sugar, lemon juice, fresh butter, and cinnamon until smooth and dry.

  2. Cool the marmalade completely before filling the mold.

Assemble and finish

  1. Roll out a cover for the tart and place it over the filled mold, sealing the edges.

  2. Trim excess paste and sprinkle with pounded sugar.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Melts into the crumb and adds richness and tenderness to the pastry.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the tart together.
Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the paste into a smooth, workable dough.
Apples
Cook down into the fruit filling that gives the tart its main body and flavor.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and helps it thicken as it cooks down.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Cool the marmalade completely before filling the mold. Apple filling that is still hot softens the raw paste and can make the bottom soggy, while a fully cooled filling keeps the crust crisp and the layers intact.

Swap the apple

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

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

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