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Dessert

Fine Fruit Cake

A cake made from dried apples stewed in molasses, then baked with flour, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Fine Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Soak the dried apples overnight in cold water to swell them.

  2. Chop the soaked apples in the morning and place them in a pot with the molasses.

  3. Stew the apples and molasses until soft but not pulpy.

Make the batter

  1. Let the mixture cool, then mix in the flour, butter, eggs, and baking soda.

Bake

  1. Bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Allspice + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 in the molasses.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep, robust flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich mouthfeel.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.

The step that matters

Stew the apples until soft but not pulpy. Overcooking breaks the apple pieces down into a mush that loses texture and makes the batter wet. Stopping when the pieces are just tender keeps their shape and gives the cake a chewy bite.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, molasses, flour, butter, egg, allspice):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Pearfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, molasses, flour, butter, egg, allspice. 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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