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Dessert

Apple Fruit Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apple Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°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. Drain and chop the apples finely.

  3. Combine the chopped apples and molasses.

  4. Boil slowly for 3 to 4 hours until thickened.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Make the batter

  1. Add brown sugar, butter, sour milk, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, baking soda, and eggs.

  2. Mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour.

  4. Stir until combined.

  5. Pour the batter into two square baking tins or one large 5‑quart basin.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 2.5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide bulk and fruity moisture that softens during long soaking and boiling.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Boil the apple and molasses mixture slowly until thickened. Cooking the fruit long and gently drives off water and concentrates flavor, so the batter does not turn out too wet. Rushing or boiling too hard can scorch the sugars in the molasses.

Swap the apple

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

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

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