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Dessert

Dried Apple Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with dried apples, molasses, raisins, flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dried Apple Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Soak the dried apples overnight in enough cold water to cover them.

  2. Chop the soaked apples in the morning and place them in a pot with the molasses.

  3. Stew the mixture until the apples are almost soft, then add the raisins and stew for a few more minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a baking pan and bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide the main fruit body and moisture, softening as they stew in the molasses.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and moisture to the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and darken.

The step that matters

Cool the stewed mixture before adding the flour, butter, eggs and baking soda. If the hot fruit mixture is combined with eggs and baking soda, the eggs may scramble and the baking soda may react too early, weakening the rise. Cooling first keeps the batter smooth and lets the leavening work in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, raisin, flour, butter, egg, nutmeg, 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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