Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Fruit Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the fondant
In a large pot, combine sugar, cream, and cream of tartar or glucose.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches a soft ball stage.
Pour the mixture onto a damp slab and let it cool.
Once cool, cream the mixture until smooth.
Add fruit and set
Work in the French fruits until evenly distributed.
Mold the mixture into large cake pans and let it sit for a few hours to harden.
Cut into slices for serving.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the sweet bulk of the cake and, once cooked and creamed, sets into a firm, smooth mass.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and fat, giving the mixture a softer, richer texture.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystallization so the mixture stays smooth.
- Glucose
- Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the mixture smooth and tender.
- French fruits
- Provide flavor, color, and chewy pieces throughout the sweet mass.
The step that matters
Cook to the soft ball stage. Cooking sugar syrup to the soft ball stage sets the right concentration of sugar. Undercooking leaves the mixture too soft to hold its shape, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle once cooled.
“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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