Name: Dried Apple Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 3 cups dried apples; 2 cups New Orleans molasses; 2 beaten eggs; 1 cup sugar; ¾ cup butter; 2 teaspoons baking soda; spices to taste; flour (enough to make a stiff batter)

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dried Apple Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the dried apples overnight in warm water.
Chop the soaked apples into bits.
In a stew pan, combine the chopped apples and molasses, and simmer for two hours.
Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs, sugar, butter, baking soda, spices, and enough flour to form a stiff batter.

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.

Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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

Swap the apple

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, sugar, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.