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Baking

Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, egg yolks, flour, raisins, currants, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the sour milk and egg yolks, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, cream of tartar, and flour.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the chopped raisins, currants, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lift the cake.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.. Adding flour in portions helps keep the batter smooth and evenly mixed, so the leavening spreads through the batter and the crumb bakes evenly.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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