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Dessert

Molasses Fruit Cake

A moist fruit cake made with molasses, butter, brown sugar, spices, raisins, currants, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Molasses Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Mix in the molasses and milk with dissolved baking soda.

  3. Add ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs and enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  5. Fold in the floured raisins and currants.

Bake

  1. Pour into a greased pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and carries flavour.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep, sweet, slightly bitter flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cake rise and darken.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stir in enough flour for a stiff batter. Too little flour leaves the batter loose, so the fruit sinks and the cake spreads. Too much makes it dense and dry, because flour proteins and starch set the crumb as they hydrate and bake.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, milk, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Fennelfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, cinnamon, clove, 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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