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Dessert

Aepfel Kuchen — Apple Cake

A moist apple cake with raisins, currants, almonds, and a crumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Aepfel Kuchen — Apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine apples, raisins, currants, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and wine in a stew-pan.

  2. Stew until soft and let cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix grated stale roll with warmed butter and pounded almonds.

  2. Line a shallow tin with thin pastry.

  3. Spread the apple mixture evenly, about half an inch thick.

  4. Cover the apple mixture with the crumb mixture.

  5. Bake until the pastry is nicely done.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and its moist, tender body once stewed.
Stale roll
Forms a dry crumb that soaks up moisture and gives the topping body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the crumb topping brown and taste rich.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and fat to the crumb topping, giving it a firmer texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the apples caramelise slightly as they stew.

The step that matters

Stew the apple mixture until soft. The apples must be fully softened before assembly, because raw or firm fruit releases less juice and stays crisp, leaving the filling uneven and the pastry underbaked beneath it.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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