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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, spices, fruit, nuts, and eggs, flavored with brandy and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the spices, molasses, and beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Mix in part of the flour and the baking soda.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  5. Gently add the floured fruit and nuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise and set.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise and brown.
Dark molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color to the batter.
Walnut meats
Add texture and a rich, nutty flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only if they are beaten stiff and folded in gently. Stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving a denser cake with less lift.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, lemon, butter, orange, sugar, molasses, meat):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, lemon, butter, orange, sugar, molasses, meat. 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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