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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, molasses, dried apples, raisins, currants, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

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 ↓

Dried Apple 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Stir in the cinnamon, soured milk, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the flour and cloves, mixing well.

  6. Chop and stew the soaked apples in the molasses.

  7. Fold the stewed apples into the batter before adding all the flour.

  8. Add raisins and currants if desired.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Clove + appletop 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. Cinnamon + flourtop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the soured milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Soured milk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Molasses
Sweetens and darkens the cake while adding moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Fold the stewed apples in before adding all the flour. Folding the stewed apples in before the rest of the flour lets them distribute evenly through the batter. Mixing flour in too early or too hard can overdevelop gluten, which toughens the crumb.

Swap the clove

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

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

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