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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 300°F (150°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

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

  2. Combine the raisins, currants, and citron with the flour.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light, then mix them with the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the brandy and spices to the mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Gently fold in the fruit and flour mixture.

  6. Line a cake pan with paper and pour in the batter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 2 to 3 hours, covering with paper if it begins to brown.

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. Raisin + flourtop 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter and whites, beaten stiff and folded in, lighten its crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Heavy flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as the cake sets.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to help aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Raisins, stoned
Supply moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants
Add moisture and tart, concentrated fruit flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking low and covering the cake. A long, slow bake at 300°F lets the dense fruit batter cook through without the outside scorching. Covering with paper when browning starts shields the surface while the centre sets.

Swap the currant

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

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

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