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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A moist cake made with dried apples, raisins, figs, molasses, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Dried Apple Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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 overnight in cold water, then drain and chop finely.

  2. Boil the chopped apples in the molasses until dark and clear.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix all ingredients as you would for a fruit cake.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake for 3 hours in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. About 1 hour before it's done, baste the cake with ½ cup of sherry wine.

  4. Baste again in 30 minutes for added flavor.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide fruit bulk and moisture, and soften into the batter when chopped and boiled.
New orleans molasses
Adds dark colour, moisture and deep, sweet flavour to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness, tenderness and fat that carries flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Boiling the chopped apples in the molasses. Boiling until dark and clear softens the apples and concentrates the molasses, so the fruit blends evenly into the batter instead of leaving wet or raw pieces.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applethe original
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, butter, cinnamon, molasses, milk, raisin. 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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