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Dessert

Farmer's Fruit Cake

A cake made with dried apples, sugar, butter, flour, sour milk, egg, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Farmer's Fruit 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 and chop them finely.

  2. Stew the chopped apples in sugar for 2 to 3 hours until they are slightly candied.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg and sour milk, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  5. Fold in the candied apples.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes or 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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flavor and chewy, candied pieces in the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stew the apples until slightly candied. Dried apples must be fully softened and sugar-cooked before folding; undercooked pieces stay tough and can draw moisture from the batter, leaving the cake dense and uneven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, cinnamon. 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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