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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A cake made with dried apples, molasses, and spices, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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. In the morning, boil the soaked apples in ⅓ cup molasses and ½ cup sugar for 1 hour.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then combine it with the egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.

Bake

  1. Mix well and pour into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide fruit flavour and moisture as they soften during the long simmer in molasses.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a moist, rich texture to the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so the baking soda releases gas for rising.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.

The step that matters

Boiling the apples in molasses and sugar. Simmering for a full hour softens the dried apples and concentrates the molasses. If the mixture is not cooled before adding the leavening and egg, the heat can start the reactions too early and cook the egg, weakening the rise.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, molasses. 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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