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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake, Mrs. Brodie

A cake made with soaked dried apples, syrup, eggs, milk, butter, and flour, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dried Apple Cake, Mrs. Brodie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Soak the dried apples in warm water overnight.

  2. Chop the apples slightly and simmer them in syrup or molasses for 1.5 hours.

Make and bake the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, milk, and butter.

  2. Add the cooked apples and baking soda to the mixture.

  3. Stir in enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 the fruit body and sweet, chewy texture in the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic syrup or molasses to lift and lighten the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the stiff batter as it bakes.
Syrup or molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the apples and batter.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda to the batter. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Its acidity comes from the syrup or molasses, so the soda must be combined into the batter promptly, before the gas escapes, for the cake to rise evenly.

Swap the apple

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

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

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