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Dessert

Fruit Cake I

A dense, sweet cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, eggs, flour, and dried fruits.

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 I

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 the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, ensuring each is fully incorporated.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the currants, raisins, citron, figs, almonds, and candied peels.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 2 to 3 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Currant + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit suspended in the cake.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat creamed with the sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and extra browning to the batter.
Currants
Provide the main fruit body, sweetness, and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit. Heavy fruit can sink to the bottom of a dense batter. Folding gently keeps the batter airy and distributes the fruit evenly for a uniform crumb.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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