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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, brandy, spices, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Whisk the eggs until thick, then gradually add them to the butter mixture.

  3. Mix in the flour, brandy, and spices.

  4. Fold in the prepared fruit.

Bake

  1. Line your baking pan with parchment paper and pour in the batter, smoothing the top.

  2. Bake for about 4 hours.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked eggs add structure and lift, helping bind the rich batter as it sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a fine, tender texture.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the dense batter.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs gradually to the butter mixture. Adding eggs slowly lets the fat and liquid emulsify into a smooth batter. If the eggs go in too fast, the mixture can curdle and trap less air, which can make the finished cake denser.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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