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Dessert

Fruit Cake II

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, flour, raisins, citron, dates, figs, eggs, citrus, spices, molasses, and coffee, steamed then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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 II

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.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Chop orange rind and pulp finely, mixing in as much sugar as possible.

Make the batter

  1. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add egg yolks and spices, then mix in molasses and baking soda.

  3. Fold in the floured fruit and finally the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam mixture for 4 hours, then bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  5. Dates + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the cake tender and rich in texture.
Eggs
Egg whites give structure and lift when beaten and folded in; yolks add richness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and batter together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cake rise and darken.
Seeded raisins
Provide chewy fruit pieces and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the cake dense, so fold gently and only until just combined.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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