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Dessert

English Fruit Cake

A dense, sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, milk, and dried fruit, then steamed and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

English Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and beat thoroughly.

  2. Separate yolks from whites of eggs; beat yolks until thick and lemon-colored, whites until stiff and dry, and add to first mixture.

  3. Add milk, fruit, nuts, and flour mixed and sifted with mace, cinnamon, and soda.

Steam and bake

  1. Put in buttered deep pans, cover with buttered paper.

  2. Steam three hours.

  3. Bake one and one half hours in a slow oven, or bake four hours in a very slow oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

908Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
139 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 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
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Macenot 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 Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to hold air and give the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while stiffly beaten whites lighten its structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the heavy fruit and nuts together.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and develop flavor.
Currants
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that lifts a very heavy batter; overmixing or deflating them loses that lift, leaving a dense cake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, milk, currant. 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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