Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Apple Sauce Cake
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the beaten egg and warm apple sauce, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, raisins, and dates.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a tube pan lined with buttered paper.
Bake for 1½ hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 fat and richness, creaming with sugar helps give the cake a tender crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning, and creaming it with butter traps air for lightness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the moist apple sauce to lift the batter as it bakes.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture.
- Apple sauce
- Adds moisture and tenderness, and natural fruit sweetness to the cake.
The step that matters
Stirring in the dry ingredients. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stir only until the flour is just combined.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, cinnamon, raisin, sauce):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, cinnamon, raisin, sauce. 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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