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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A cake made with dried apples, molasses, eggs, butter, brown sugar, spices, raisins, currants, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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 apples

  1. Soak the dried apples overnight.

  2. Chop the soaked apples coarsely.

  3. In a pot, combine the chopped apples and black molasses.

  4. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  5. Discard the soaking water.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Make the batter

  1. Add the eggs, butter, very brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, saleratus, raisins, currants, and flour to the mixture. Mix well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a baking dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  3. Frost the cake.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide fruit bulk and moisture, softened by soaking and boiling into the batter.
Black molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and helps the cake stay tender.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Saleratus
Reacts with the acidic molasses to give the cake lift.

The step that matters

Boil the apple and molasses mixture, then let it cool. Boiling softens the dried apples and thickens the molasses so they blend evenly. The mixture must cool before the eggs and butter are added, because heat can scramble the eggs and melt the butter, which would disrupt the batter.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, egg, butter, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, butter, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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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