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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A cake made with dried apples, molasses, raisins, and spices, baked in loaf pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

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 ↓

Dried Apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the apple base

  1. Simmer the chopped dried apples and mixed spices in molasses for 2 hours.

  2. Add enough water to return to the original quantity.

  3. Cool the mixture.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the eggs, mixed butter and lard, flour, raisins, and baking soda, then mix well.

  2. Pour into loaf pans.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until done.

Rest

  1. Let the cake stand for 48 hours before cutting.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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

Dried apples
Provide fruit flavour and soft, moist texture as they soften during simmering.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, and moisture to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Mixed butter and lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the eggs. Adding eggs to a very hot mixture can start cooking them unevenly and cause lumps. Cooling first keeps the batter smooth and lets the eggs blend in evenly.

Swap the apple

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

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

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