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Dessert

Farmer's Fruit Cake

A moist fruit cake made with dried apples, molasses, butter, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Farmer's 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

  1. Soak the dried apples in warm water overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the water and chop the apples to the size of raisins.

  3. Simmer the chopped apples in molasses for 2 hours until they absorb all the molasses.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the sweet milk and eggs to the butter mixture and mix well.

  3. Stir in the cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and wine.

  4. Gradually add the flour and mix until smooth.

  5. Fold in the floured currants or raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour dried apples
Provide moisture and fruity bulk, softened by soaking and simmering in molasses.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the cake.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and wine to lift and lighten the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Simmering the apples in molasses. The apples must absorb the molasses fully so the cake gets even moisture and sweetness. Stopping early can leave wet pockets or dry, uneven fruit in the finished cake.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, sugar, milk, egg, clove, 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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