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Dessert

Sour Apple Sauce Cake

A moist cake made with sour apple sauce, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sour 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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the baking soda with the water until dissolved, then add the sour apple sauce to the baking soda mixture.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, spices, and salt, then stir in the chopped raisins.

  4. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Mix and bake

  1. Gradually add the apple sauce mixture to the butter and sugar.

  2. Fold in the flour mixture until just combined.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour apple sauce
Adds moisture and fruit flavor, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic apple sauce to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.

The step that matters

Fold in the flour mixture until just combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stop as soon as no dry streaks remain.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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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