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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, molasses, sour milk, spices, brandy, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and mace; mix well.

  3. Stir in the molasses and sour milk.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and brandy; mix thoroughly.

  5. Gradually add the flour, alternating with the beaten egg whites.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda and stir it in.

  7. Mix the fruit with 2 heaping tablespoons of flour, then fold it into the batter.

Bake and store

  1. Butter two baking tins and line them with buttered parchment paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  3. Let the cake cool in the pans, then store it in a tight can.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and emulsify the batter, and beaten whites lighten the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness.

The step that matters

Alternating the flour with the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites, which lifts the cake. Vigorous mixing develops gluten in the flour and toughens the crumb.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, raisin, molasses, milk, nutmeg. 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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White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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