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Dessert

Farmer's Fruit Cake

A moist apple cake flavored with molasses, cloves, and spices, baked in loaf pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. 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.

Make the apple molasses

  1. In a pot, combine soaked and chopped apples, cloves, and molasses.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 2 hours, then let it cool.

Make the batter

  1. Once cool, add butter, eggs, sugar, and sour milk to the mixture.

  2. Stir in baking soda, flour, and any desired spices and raisins.

  3. Pour the batter into two large loaf pans.

Bake

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 fruit flavour and moisture, softening into the molasses base as they simmer.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness, and moisture to the cake.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and molasses to leaven the batter and lighten the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Let the apple molasses cool before adding the other ingredients. Adding butter and eggs to a hot mixture can cause the butter to melt and the eggs to scramble or curdle, which disrupts the batter's emulsion and texture.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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