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Dessert

Richest Fruit Cake or Black Cake

A dense, spiced fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, spices, sugar, butter, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Richest Fruit Cake or Black Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit and flavourings

  1. Mix raisins, currants, and shredded citron.

  2. Combine spices, burnt sugar coloring, molasses, brandy, and lemon extract.

Make the batter

  1. Cream sugar and butter, then add eggs one at a time.

  2. Gradually mix in flour until fully incorporated, then add spice mixture.

  3. Dust prepared fruit with flour and fold into batter.

Bake and rest

  1. Line two cake molds with buttered paper and divide batter between them.

  2. Wrap molds in greased paper and tie with twine.

  3. Bake at 300°F for 2 to 2¼ hours.

  4. Let cake sit 2 to 3 days before cutting.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through the creamed sugar and fat base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give the cake a light crumb.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour, and a darker colour to the cake.

The step that matters

Dust prepared fruit with flour and fold into batter. Flour-dusted fruit is less likely to sink to the bottom of a heavy batter, so folding it in gently keeps the fruit evenly distributed through the cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mace, sugar, molasses. 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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