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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with brown sugar, butter, flour, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, spices, wine, brandy, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Sift the spices together in a cup.

  2. Stir together the brown sugar and egg yolks in a large bowl.

  3. Beat the butter until creamy.

  4. Whip the egg whites until frothy.

Mix the batter

  1. Combine the sugar, egg yolks, and butter mixture with the sifted spices and liquor.

  2. Gradually add the flour.

  3. Fold in the whipped egg whites and the fruit.

  4. Chop part of the raisins before adding.

Bake

  1. If baking in one loaf, place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3 to 4 hours.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks provide structure, lift and richness in the batter.
Butter
Creamed butter adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Flour gives the batter structure as the eggs and butter set during baking.
Brown sugar
Sugar adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper caramel flavor.
Currants
Dried fruit adds chewy texture, sweetness and moisture to the cake.
Raisins
Dried fruit adds chewy texture, sweetness and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Folding gently with a spatula keeps that air in, while stirring hard would deflate the batter and make a denser cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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