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Dessert

Domestic Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with dried apples, molasses, flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Domestic Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady 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. Chop the apples in the morning and place them in a pot with the molasses.

  3. Stew the mixture until the apples are soft but not pulpy.

Make the batter

  1. Let the mixture cool, then mix in the flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, spices, and salt.

  2. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a steady 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 sweetness, moisture and body once stewed into the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and dark color and flavor, and softens the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Stewing the apples until soft but not pulpy. Stewing softens the apples and drives off excess water. If they are undercooked, the batter gets chunky and wet; if overcooked into pulp, the cake loses texture and becomes dense and overly moist.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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