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Dessert

Citron or White Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with citron, almonds, wine, brandy, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, nutmeg, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Citron or White Fruit Cake

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 the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the vanilla extract, nutmeg, and baking powder, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, alternating with the wine and brandy.

  5. Fold in the citron and almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for three hours or steam like a fruit cake.

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 + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Citron
Adds bulk and a tart, aromatic fruit flavour throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour, and contribute fat and texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes lighter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour, alternating with the wine and brandy. Adding flour in portions with liquid keeps the batter smooth and emulsified and prevents overmixing, which would toughen the crumb.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vanilla, butter, flour, wine, brandy, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, butter, flour, wine, brandy, almond. 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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