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Dessert

Apple Cake, or German Tart

A baked apple tart with a buttery crust and cinnamon-sweetened apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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.

Make the pastry

  1. Mix the butter and flour with your fingers until it resembles fine crumbs.

  2. Add a pinch of salt, then combine with the egg yolks and enough water to form a firm, smooth paste.

  3. Butter a pie mold and roll out the paste thinly.

  4. Trim the crust to fit the mold, covering the bottom and sides.

  5. Join the edges with a little water or egg, and secure with a thin band of paste.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the apples, sugar, lemon juice, butter, and cinnamon in a pot over low heat, then increase the heat until smooth and dry.

  2. Let the apple mixture cool completely before filling the mold.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out a cover for the tart and place it over the filling without touching it.

  2. Trim excess paste from the cover.

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

  4. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

  5. If the sides aren't colored enough, return to the oven for a few minutes.

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 pastry and a rich flavor to the filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pastry together.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the paste into a smooth dough.
Apples
Form the bulk of the filling, softening and reducing into a thick, smooth mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apple filling thicken as moisture cooks off.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor and helps prevent browning.

The step that matters

Cooling the apple mixture completely. Filling the crust while the apples are still hot can melt the butter in the pastry and make the crust soggy. Cooling lets the filling set so the tart holds its shape and the crust stays crisp.

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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