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Dessert

Dried Apple Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with soaked dried apples, molasses, raisins, and spices, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 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.

  2. Heat the soaked apples through, then remove and chop them finely.

  3. In a pot, combine the chopped apples with molasses and stew until almost soft.

Make the batter

  1. Add sugar, raisins, sour milk, and dissolved baking soda to the pot.

  2. Mix in flour, butter, eggs, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 moisture, giving the cake its soft, chewy fruit texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and moisture, and softens the apples as they stew.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses to release gas that lifts the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses and starts releasing gas right away. Mix it in just before baking so the bubbles are trapped in the batter and the cake rises rather than going flat.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, raisin, milk, 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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