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Dessert

Farmer's Fruit Cakes

A cake made with dried sour apples, golden syrup, sugar, butter, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Chop the dried sour apples finely and soak them overnight.

  2. In the morning, simmer the soaked apples with the golden syrup for 2 hours.

Make and bake the cake

  1. Prepare the other ingredients as you would for any cake, beating well.

  2. Add the apple and syrup mixture when it is warm but not cold.

  3. Pour the batter into small greased tins.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 to 75 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried sour apples
Provide tart fruit flavour and moist, chewy pieces throughout the cake.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture and a rich caramel-like depth to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and tenderises the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Add the apple and syrup mixture when it is warm but not cold. Warm mixture blends smoothly into the creamed batter, while cold mixture can firm the butter and cause uneven texture. Adding it at the right temperature keeps the batter evenly mixed.

Swap the clove

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

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

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