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German Apple Cake

A yeast-based cake with apples, butter, and sugar, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

German Apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the melted butter and sugar.

  3. Add the yeast to the mixture.

  4. In a large bowl, combine the mixture with the flour and enough lukewarm milk to form a stiff dough.

Assemble the cake

  1. Butter a baking pan.

  2. Line the pan with a thin layer of the dough.

  3. Dip the spoon in milk or melted butter to prevent sticking.

  4. Spread the dough with the spoon.

  5. Peel the cooking apples.

  6. Cut the apples into quarters or eighths, depending on their size.

  7. Arrange the apple pieces in rows on top of the cake.

Rise and finish

  1. Place the cake in a warm area to rise.

  2. Dot the cake with small lumps of butter.

  3. Sprinkle the cake with brown sugar and melted butter.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the cake.
Yeast
Leavens the dough so the cake rises and becomes light.
Flour
Forms the stiff dough structure that holds the cake together.
Cooking apples
Add moisture and tartness that contrasts with the sweet dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the dough and topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Place the cake in a warm area to rise. Yeast needs warmth to become active and produce gas. If the dough stays cold, it will not rise properly and the cake will turn out dense.

Swap the apple

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

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

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