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Dessert

Dried-apple or Economical Fruit-cake

A moist cake made with dried apples, molasses, raisins, and spices, baked in loaf pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dried-apple or Economical Fruit-cake

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 apples in water overnight.

  2. Drain and chop the apples.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the chopped apples, molasses, and spices.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Once the molasses mixture is cool, stir in the butter, sugar, egg, flour, and baking powder.

  3. Beat hard for 3 to 4 minutes.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a few drops of boiling water.

  5. Coat the raisins in flour until well covered.

  6. Beat the dissolved soda into the batter for a minute.

  7. Gently stir in the raisins.

  8. The batter should be thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Bake and test

  1. Prepare 2 large loaf pans lined with greased parchment paper.

  2. Fill each pan halfway with batter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. After 15 minutes, reduce the heat and cover the top with brown paper.

  5. Bake for a total of about 45 minutes.

  6. Test for doneness with a broom whisk; it should come out dry.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and deep sweetness while softening the dried apples.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thick batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and apples to help the cake rise and darken.
Dried apples
Add fruit flavor and moisture, and their tartness balances the sweet molasses.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.

The step that matters

Bake with the top covered after 15 minutes. Reducing the heat and covering the top with brown paper slows surface browning so the centre can bake through without the crust darkening or burning during the long bake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, sugar, 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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