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Dessert

Black Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with brown sugar, butter, eggs, browned flour, black molasses, wine, brandy, spices, raisins, currants, citron, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Black Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  2. Beat the eggs separately and add them to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the browned flour and black molasses.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the batter.

  5. Mix in the wine and brandy.

  6. Combine the ground spices and add them to the mixture.

  7. Dredge the raisins, currants, citron, and almonds in flour, then fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake for 4 hours at 300°F (150°C).

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

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

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep caramel flavour.
Browned flour
Provides structure and a toasted, nutty aroma.
Black molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a robust sweet flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lift the batter and aid rising.

The step that matters

Dredge the fruit and nuts in flour before folding. Coating the raisins, currants, citron and almonds in flour helps them stay suspended in the thick batter instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan during baking.

“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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