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Dessert

Dried Apple Fruit Cake

A cake made with dried apples, molasses, raisins, flour, butter, eggs, and baking soda, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dried Apple Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Soak the dried apples in cold water overnight to swell them.

  2. Chop the soaked apples in the morning and place them in a pot with the molasses.

  3. Stew the mixture until the apples are almost soft.

  4. Add the raisins and stew for a few more moments.

Make the batter and bake

  1. When the mixture is cold, stir in the flour, butter, eggs, and baking soda.

  2. Bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

Dried apples
Provide the bulk and fruity flavour, softening into the cake as they stew.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
All-purpose flour
Builds the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift and lighten the crumb.

The step that matters

Cool the stewed mixture before adding the flour, butter, eggs, and baking soda. Adding eggs and baking soda to a hot mixture can cook the eggs unevenly and cause the baking soda to react too early, so the cake may rise poorly. Letting it cool first keeps the batter smooth and the rise even.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, raisin, flour, butter, egg. 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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