Name: Apple Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour; 1 cup butter, softened; 2 cups raisins; 2 cups sugar; 3 cups dried apples, soaked overnight and chopped; 1 cup milk; 2 cups molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple 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

Soak the dried apples overnight.
Chop the soaked apples finely.
Stew the chopped apples in the molasses for 2 hours.

Make the batter

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
Add the milk with dissolved baking soda.
Add the beaten eggs.
Mix in the flour.
Add the raisins.
Add the stewed apples.
Stir the batter well.

Bake

Pour the batter into pans.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 ½ hours.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
All-purpose flour: Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the cake its structure.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps browning during baking.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Molasses: Adds dark colour, moisture and a deep, slightly acidic flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the batter well. Thorough mixing spreads the baking soda and fruit evenly so the cake rises uniformly and each slice has even texture.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Datesfits about as well
Applethe original

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