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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A moist cake made with soaked dried apples, molasses, shortening, eggs, baking soda, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dried Apple Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apple filling

  1. Chop the soaked dried apples and simmer them in molasses for 30 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add shortening, eggs, baking soda, flour, and spices. Mix until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake 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.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + molassestop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together970 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 chewy texture and fruity flavour as they soften in the molasses.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and simmering softens the apples in it.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries the spices.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the baked crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and darken.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the cake its body.

The step that matters

Cooling the apple mixture before adding the other ingredients. Adding baking soda and eggs to a hot mixture can cause the eggs to scramble and the leavening to react too early, weakening the rise. Letting it cool first keeps the batter smooth and the cake's rise even.

Swap the apple

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

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

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