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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A cake made with soaked dried apples, molasses, sugar, eggs, shortening, baking soda, flour, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

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 ↓

Dried Apple 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 apples

  1. Soak the dried apples overnight.

  2. Chop the soaked apples finely.

  3. In a pot, stew the apples with molasses for 1 hour over low heat. Let the mixture cool.

Make and bake the cake

  1. Add sugar, eggs, shortening, baking soda, soaking water, flour, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour into a greased baking pan.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide fruit flavor and moisture, softened by soaking and stewing into the batter.
Molasses
Adds dark color, sweetness and a deep flavor while keeping the cake moist.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets during baking.
Shortening
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Let the stewed apple mixture cool before adding the other ingredients. Baking soda starts reacting with the acidic molasses as soon as it is mixed in. Adding it to a hot mixture can speed that reaction and eggs may begin to scramble, so cooling keeps the batter stable and the rise even.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, molasses, sugar, egg, butter. 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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