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Dessert

Deied Apple Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Deied Apple 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 overnight.

  2. Steam the apples until soft.

  3. Combine the softened apples with molasses and simmer until well cooked.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Make the batter

  1. Add the egg, sugar, butter, and milk to the cooled mixture.

  2. Mix in the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 flavor and moisture, softened before baking into the cake.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweet flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that works with baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Let the apple mixture cool before adding the batter ingredients. Adding the egg and other ingredients to hot apples can cook the egg unevenly and change how the batter mixes and rises, so the mixture should be cooled first.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream. 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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