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Dessert

Scotch Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, and flavored with lemon and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Scotch Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop or seed the raisins, slice the citron thinly.

  2. Wash and dry the currants, then flour all fruit slightly.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the sour milk gradually.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of eggs.

  4. While stirring in the sifted flour, fold in the well-whipped egg whites.

  5. Flavor with lemon and vanilla extract.

Assemble and bake

  1. In the pan, place a thin layer of batter, sprinkle some of the three kinds of fruit, then another layer of batter, and repeat, finishing with a thin layer of batter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven for two hours.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

350Calories
15 gProtein
14 gFat
45 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
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Fruitnot 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.

By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and structure, while yolks enrich the batter and help it set.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the soda to help the cake rise and keeps the crumb tender.
Raisins
Dried fruit adds sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Currants
Small dried fruit adds sweetness and chewy texture distributed through the batter.
White sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps brown the crust while creaming aerates the butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them in vigorously or over-mixing with the flour deflates the foam, leaving a dense cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, raisin, lemon, sugar, 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.

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