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Dessert

Maryland Apple Cake

A baked apple cake with a sweet paste crust, flavored with cinnamon and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Maryland Apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Melt the butter in two frying pans.

  2. Add the apples (peeled and cored) and fry slowly until done.

  3. Stir in the sugar and cinnamon, cooking a little longer until the apples are brown.

Assemble the cake

  1. Butter a baking pan and line it with the rolled-out sweet paste.

  2. Pour in the apple mixture and cover with a thin crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes, or until golden without scorching.

  2. Turn the cake out upside down onto a board or sheet and cut into squares to serve.

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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling, softening as they fry and becoming sweet and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, as it cooks, helps the apples brown and caramelise.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the apples fry and carry flavour.
Sweet paste
Forms the rich crust that holds the filling and bakes to a golden base and top.

The step that matters

Frying the apples until browned. Cooking the apples slowly lets their moisture evaporate, so the filling does not turn watery and soggy inside the crust. Browning the sugar adds caramel flavour.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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