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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A moist cake made with dried apples, molasses, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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. Soak the dried apples overnight in enough water to swell them.

  2. Chop the soaked apples finely and stew them in molasses for 2 hours.

Mix and bake

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then add the remaining ingredients.

  2. Mix well and pour into a greased baking pan.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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 the fruit base and moisture, softening into the batter as they stew.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture while helping the cake stay tender.
Shortening
Adds fat for tenderness and a soft crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets.

The step that matters

Stewing the apples in molasses. Dried apples must be fully softened and cooled before mixing, since hot or chopped-too-coarsely fruit can leave uneven texture and stop the batter from setting evenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, 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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