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Dessert

Apple Fruit Cake

A cake made with dried apples, molasses, raisins, sugar, cream or buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Apple Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apple mixture

  1. Chop the dried apples.

  2. Combine them with molasses in a pot.

  3. Cook the mixture until done.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Add the stoned and chopped raisins. Mix well.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar, cream or buttermilk, and egg yolks together.

  2. Stir in the baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Combine the apple mixture with the egg mixture. Mix until well combined.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 fruity body of the cake.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, moisture and a deep, caramel-like sweetness.
Eggs
Add structure and richness; the whites are folded in to lighten the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream or buttermilk
Adds moisture and tenderness; buttermilk's acidity also helps the baking soda react.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that gives the batter lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, cream, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, cream, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisin. 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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