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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, flour, molasses, brandy, eggs, baking soda, citron, currants, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the flour, molasses, brandy, and eggs, mixing well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and add to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the citron, currants, and raisins, ensuring they are well dried and floured.

Top and bake

  1. Reserve some of the dough without fruit to cover the top of the cake.

  2. Spread the reserved dough over the fruit to prevent burning.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for several hours until done.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a light texture and adds sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and crumb together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly acidic flavor.

The step that matters

Baking the long cake with a fruit-free cover. The batter is baked for several hours, so the top can burn before the center sets. The plain dough layer shields the fruit, and the cake must be fully baked through to set the batter.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, molasses, brandy, egg, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, molasses, brandy, egg, raisin. 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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