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Dried Apple Cake
Mrs. Brodie.
Soak three cupsful of dried apples over night in warm water; chop slightly, then let them simmer for one hour and a-half in two cups of syrup or molasses; add two eggs, one cup of sugar, one cup of sweet milk, half cup of butter, one teaspoonful of soda, flour enough to make a stiff batter; bake in a quick oven.
A dense molasses loaf built around a sticky dried-apple preserve. The recipe gives no pan, no flour quantity and no baking time, so a few decisions are yours to make.
- The apples are the hingeThe hour and a half of simmering in molasses is not softening but candying — the fruit should end up glossy, jammy and thick enough to hold a spoon mark. Undercook it and the cake bakes around chewy leathery pieces. Let it cool to lukewarm before adding the eggs.
- Dried applesUse unsweetened dried apple rings or slices, not the crisp freeze-dried kind, which collapse to powder. Three cups measures loose slices; they will swell appreciably after soaking overnight.
- Sweet milkPlain whole milk. The term distinguished it from sour milk or buttermilk, which was the other common baking liquid and called for different leavening.
- Soda and molassesThe teaspoon of soda reacts with the acid in the molasses, so an acidic syrup matters; the recipe allows 'syrup or molasses', and a period cane or sorghum syrup would work, but a neutral golden syrup or a sugar-based pancake syrup gives little lift and the crumb will be heavier. A full-flavour unsulphured molasses is a safer choice than blackstrap at this quantity.
- Flour enough for a stiff batterExpect roughly 3 to 3 1/2 cups. The batter should mound on the spoon and fall reluctantly, closer to a thick gingerbread than a pourable cake.
- A quick ovenA quick oven is usually reckoned at about 400-425F, which is hotter than suits a batter this heavy and sugary — the molasses can scorch before the centre sets. Bake at 350F instead.
- Pan and timeThe volume suits a 9x13 pan (about 40 minutes) or two loaf pans (55–65 minutes). Test with a skewer; the fruit stays moist, so look for a clean crumb rather than absolute dryness.
- SpiceMrs. Brodie adds none, though many cakes of this kind were spiced; a teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon each of cloves and nutmeg would not be out of place. Without them the molasses is very forward.
- KeepingServes 12 or so and improves on the second day. Wrapped well, it keeps a week; the candied fruit holds the moisture.
Dried apple cake belongs to the winter half of the nineteenth-century North American year, when the barrel of apples strung up and dried in the autumn was the only fruit in the house and molasses was cheaper than white sugar. Recipes of this kind stew the apples down in syrup until they pass for something richer. The Home Cook Book, compiled in Toronto in the 1870s by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada" and sold to support the Hospital for Sick Children, was assembled from contributions like this one, each signed with the donor's name; the terse, unmeasured style is exactly what you get when a working cook writes down what she already knows by hand.