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Dessert

Dkied Apple Cake

A cake made with dried apples, molasses, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Dkied 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.

Prepare the apples

  1. Soak the dried apples overnight.

  2. Steam the apples until soft.

  3. Combine the softened apples with molasses and simmer until well cooked.

Make the batter

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add the egg, sugar, butter, and milk.

  2. Mix in the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 flavour and moisture once softened and cooked down.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, deep flavour.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tender texture and a rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to help it rise and brown.

The step that matters

Cooling the apple mixture before adding the egg. Adding the egg to a hot mixture can scramble or cook it unevenly, so the mixture should cool before the egg, sugar, butter and milk go in.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream. 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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