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Dessert

Fruit Cake No. 2

A dense, spiced cake made with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and spices, baked slowly at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 No. 2

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and dark brown sugar.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the molasses.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and spices.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake slowly for several hours 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 + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep molasses-like flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cake rise and brown.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for several hours. Long, low heat lets the dense batter cook through evenly without the outside burning before the center sets. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms it is fully baked.

Swap the currant

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

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

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