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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sour milk, molasses, brown sugar, flour, spices, dried fruit, almonds, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Fruit 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  3. Add the eggs, sour milk, and molasses, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda dissolved in wine.

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

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, citron, dates, figs, and almonds.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once done, pour 1 cup of brandy over the top of the cake.

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness, moisture and a deeper, caramel-like flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to help the cake rise and brown.
Dried fruit and nuts (in the method)
Add chewiness, texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour slowly and stirring only until combined keeps the batter from overmixing, which would develop gluten and make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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