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Baking

Plain Fruit Cake

A spiced cake of raisins, currants, citron and other dried fruit, with several variant recipes on this page.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 68 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Plain Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Seed the raisins and wash the currants well.

  2. Put the fruit together and chop fine in a chopping bowl.

  3. Rub the fruit into a part of the flour.

  4. Take part of the flour and thoroughly flour all the fruit.

  5. Chop the orange rind and pulp fine and mix as much sugar with it as can be stirred in.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar.

  2. Beat the butter and sugar to a cream.

  3. Add molasses, saleratus, spices and well beaten eggs.

  4. Add the yolks and spices, then the molasses and soda.

  5. Beat the butter and sugar, add yolks and beat thoroughly before adding milk, flour and extract.

  6. Add the flour and fruit slowly to the mixture.

  7. Add the fruit well floured and the stiffly beaten whites last.

  8. Beat with the hands 15 or 20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Steam four hours, then bake one hour.

  2. Steam four hours and bake one.

  3. Bake one hour.

  4. Steam four hours, then put in oven ten minutes to dry.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1505Calories
42 gProtein
45 gFat
240 gCarbs

Counts 21 of 25 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 21 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sour Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cherry1 cup (138g)87
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Date1 date (24g) medjool66
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Fig1 medium (50g)37
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Macenot in our table0
Coffeenot in our table0
Waternot in our table0
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.

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 when whites are beaten in.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and richness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it sets.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweetness with acidity that reacts with soda.
Soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Flouring the fruit before adding it. Coating the fruit in flour helps it stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, flour, butter, lemon, orange, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, flour, butter, lemon, orange, almond. 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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