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Dessert

Black Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and spices, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Black Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the fruit and coat it thoroughly with flour to prevent sinking.

  2. Place the flour in a pan inside the oven at 400°F (200°C) until it turns a rich, golden brown.

  3. Mix the browned flour with the other ingredients.

Make the batter

  1. Combine sugar and butter, then add eggs one at a time, mixing well.

  2. Fold in the prepared fruit gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a cake mold and bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) until done.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure of the cake; browning it first adds a deeper, toasted flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour particles and carrying flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and moistness in the baked cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the cake.

The step that matters

Coating the fruit in flour. Heavy fruit sinks to the bottom of a dense batter. Thoroughly coating it in flour helps it grip the batter and stay suspended as the cake bakes.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, clove, molasses, butter):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, clove, molasses, butter. 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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