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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake with currants, raisins, citron, and walnuts, baked at 300°F for 3 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix brown sugar, melted butter, molasses, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, and lemon extract.

  3. Add cinnamon, cloves, allspice, grated nutmeg, and grape juice or coffee.

  4. Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.

  5. Toss currants, raisins, chopped citron, and walnuts in flour before folding them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 3 hours.

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.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter and fruit together.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and promotes browning in the baked cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Folding the fruit into the batter. Tossing the currants, raisins, citron, and walnuts in flour helps keep them suspended rather than sinking to the bottom, and folding gently avoids deflating the batter so the cake rises evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, egg, milk, cinnamon, clove. 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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