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Dessert

Steamed Fruit Cake

A steamed cake made with butter, brown sugar, milk, molasses, eggs, flour, raisins, citron, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

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

  2. Add the milk, molasses, and eggs, mixing well.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour, baking soda, spices, raisins, and citron until combined.

Steam and dry

  1. Pour the batter into a pan and steam for 3 hours.

  2. After steaming, place the cake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour to dry.

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lift the batter and lighten the crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep, slightly acidic flavour.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Steaming the batter for 3 hours. Steam keeps the cake moist and cooks it gently without browning. Letting the water boil dry or the pan lid lift can leave the cake dense or uneven, so the pan needs steady, covered heat.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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