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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with nuts, dried fruit, molasses, and spices, steamed and then baked to dry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

Steam and dry

  1. Steam the mixture for 4 hours.

  2. After steaming, place the cake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes to dry.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pineapple + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, and soften as the cake steams.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and a soft, chewy texture.
Nuts
Add texture and a bit of crunch against the soft fruit.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and a dark colour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the cake rise and become lighter.

The step that matters

Steam the mixture for 4 hours. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, so it sets evenly without drying out. Cutting the time short can leave the centre dense and underset.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, orange, raisin, fig, molasses, clove, allspice):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, orange, raisin, fig, molasses, clove, allspice. 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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