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Dessert

Every Day Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with sugar, shortening, eggs, sour milk, soda, flour, raisins, currants, citron, nuts, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Every Day Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream two cups sugar and one cup shortening.

  2. Add three well beaten eggs.

  3. Add two cups sour milk with one teaspoon soda.

  4. Add sifted flour enough to make stiff dough, and other dry ingredients.

  5. Add one-half cup each raisins, currants, citron, nuts, and a little more flour.

Bake and rest

  1. Put very stiff dough in well greased pans.

  2. Bake in a slow oven from one to one and a half hours.

  3. Let age before using.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

440Calories
15 gProtein
25 gFat
41 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sour Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cake.
Shortening
Creams with the sugar to trap air and tenderize the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, moist texture when creamed.
Flour (in the method)
Provides the structure that sets the stiff dough as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Put very stiff dough in well greased pans.. A very stiff dough holds its shape and fruit in the pan, while thorough greasing keeps the cake from sticking as it bakes.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg. 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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