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Dessert

Apple Roll

A sweet pastry roll filled with apples, sugar, and spices, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Apple Roll

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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cut in shortening with a spatula or mixing spoon.

  3. Add milk and stir until combined.

Fill and roll

  1. Roll dough on a floured board to about 1/4 inch thick, keeping it in an oblong shape.

  2. Spread melted butter over the dough, then add a generous layer of chopped apples and sugar.

  3. Sprinkle nutmeg or cinnamon over the apples.

  4. Roll the dough tightly into a long roll.

Bake and serve

  1. Cut slices about 2 inches thick and place them on a greased pan, keeping them close together.

  2. Top each slice with a piece of apple.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the apples on top are tender.

  4. Serve hot with a rich sauce, such as cottage sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once combined with liquid and fat.
Shortening
Cut into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture in the dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the roll rises and becomes light.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to bind the dough into a workable mass.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness that soften and sweeten as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples and crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough tightly. Overworking the dough after adding milk develops gluten and toughens it, so mix only until combined and roll gently.

Swap the apple

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

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

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