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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A moist cake made with soaked dried apples, molasses, butter, sour milk, brown sugar, eggs, baking soda, spices, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

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. Chop the soaked dried apples finely.

  2. Simmer the chopped apples in molasses for three hours and let cool.

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cooled apple mixture with butter, sour milk, brown sugar, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, flour, and salt. Mix until well combined and pour into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 moist, chewy bits throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and moisture while softening the apples.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cake rises and stays tender.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Simmering the apples in molasses. Cooking the dried apples until they soften keeps them from staying tough or hard in the finished cake. Letting the mixture cool before adding it to the batter prevents the eggs and butter from curdling or melting unevenly.

Swap the apple

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

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

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