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Dessert

Hard Times Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with soaked dried apples, molasses, vinegar, eggs, brown sugar, butter, flour, sweet milk, baking soda, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hard Times 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 and chop them.

  2. Combine the chopped apples, molasses, and vinegar in a pot.

  3. Let the mixture simmer for 2 to 3 hours.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg and egg yolks in a bowl until creamy.

  2. Add the brown sugar and butter to the egg mixture and mix well.

  3. Stir in the flour, sweet milk, baking soda, and spices.

  4. Fold in the prepared apples.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until done.

  3. Use the egg whites to make frosting.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and deep flavor of the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the vinegar and molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Dried apples
Contribute moisture and fruity flavor as they soften in the batter.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) until done. A low oven bakes the dense, moist batter slowly so the center sets without the outside burning. Because the batter is heavy with fruit and molasses, it can look set on top while still being wet inside, so the cook should confirm doneness in the center.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, vinegar, egg, sugar, butter, flour, milk. 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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