Name: Fruit Cake
Ingredients: one pound butter; one pound sugar; quarter pounds flour; quarter pint brandy; one ounce cinna- mon; one pound citron; three pounds currants; four pounds raisins; ten eggs

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

One pound butter, one pound sugar, one and a quarter pounds flour, ten eggs, quarter pint brandy, one ounce cinna- mon, same of nutmeg and allspice, one pound citron, three pounds currants, four pounds raisins.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

746Calories

20 gProtein

18 gFat

124 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

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Brandy	not in our table	0

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

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Apricotfits about as well
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, brandy, raisin, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.