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Dessert

Apple Cake, or German Tart

A tart with a buttery crust and a sweet apple filling flavored with lemon and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately brisk oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. In a bowl, work together the butter and flour until they resemble fine crumbs. Add a pinch of salt, then mix in the egg yolks and enough water to form a firm, smooth paste.

  2. Butter a pie mold and roll out the paste thinly. Trim the crust to fit the mold, covering the bottom and sides.

  3. Moisten the edges and press a thin band of paste around the sides to prevent separation.

Make the filling

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

  2. Let the apple mixture cool completely.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the mold with the cooled apple mixture and roll out a cover for the tart.

  2. Lay the cover over the filling without touching it, then trim off excess paste.

  3. Decorate the top with thinly cut leaves made from the excess paste and sprinkle with pounded sugar.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour. If needed, return to the oven for a few more minutes to color the sides.

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
Adds richness and tenderness to the crust and moisture to the apple filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the crust together.
Egg yolks
Bind the dough and add richness and color to the crust.
Apples
Form the main filling, softening and thickening as they cook down.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the filling and browns the surface of the tart.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the apple filling.

The step that matters

Let the apple mixture cool completely. Filling a crust with hot apples melts the butter in the paste, so the base turns soggy and the crust can slump or separate from the sides during baking.

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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