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Dessert

Plain Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with butter, sugar, spices, milk, soda, flour, cream of tartar, citron, raisins, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Fruit Cake

one large or a dozen small cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream 3/4 cupful of butter and 2 cupfuls of granulated sugar together well.

  2. Beat in 3 eggs, 1 teaspoonful of allspice, 1/2 teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, 1/3 teaspoonful of ground cloves, and 1/4 teaspoonful of ground mace.

  3. Mix 1 cupful of milk with 3/4 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in it.

  4. Combine 3 cupfuls of sifted flour with 1 teaspoonful of cream of tartar.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix the ingredients in the order given, beating well each one before the next is added.

  2. Add part of the flour and the milk at the same time, then the rest of the flour.

  3. Add 1 cupful of sliced citron and 2 cupfuls of raisins.

  4. Fold in the fruit and add it last.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven about one hour if in one cake.

  6. The batter will make one large or a dozen small cakes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

970Calories
29 gProtein
33 gFat
140 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 12 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cloves1 tsp ground (2g)7
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Macenot 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 Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Raisins
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit last. Heavy fruit added early or overmixed can sink to the bottom and toughen the batter. Folding gently at the end keeps the fruit spread evenly and the crumb tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, allspice, nutmeg, clove, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, allspice, nutmeg, clove, milk, flour. 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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White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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