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Dessert

Dried Apple Cake

A cake made with soaked dried apples, molasses, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Dried Apple Cake

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Dried 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. In the morning, chop the soaked apples finely.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the chopped apples and molasses; simmer for 20 minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add sugar, eggs, milk, and butter; mix well.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and 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.

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

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 the fruit body and chewy texture once softened and chopped.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness that carries the spices.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the cake its structure as it sets.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Let the molasses mixture cool before adding the eggs and other wet ingredients. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble or cook unevenly, and hot liquid can weaken the rising power of the baking powder, leading to a dense cake.

Swap the apple

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

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

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