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Dessert

Scotch Fruit Cakes

A layered cake with currants, apple, and butter filling, baked with a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Scotch Fruit Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Combine currants, apple, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer slowly on the stove.

  3. Add sugar, allspice, and butter to the mixture. Stir until combined.

Make the pastry

  1. Mix flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. Cut in lard until crumbly.

  2. Roll out the pastry thinly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place one layer in a greased baking pan.

  2. Spread the filling evenly, about ½ inch thick, over the pastry. Cover with another layer of pastry.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.

  4. Cut into squares once baked. Serve.

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. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 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

Currants
Provide the bulk of the filling and its sweet, chewy fruit texture.
Flour
Forms the pastry structure that holds the filling together.
Lard
Adds fat that is cut into the flour to create a crumbly, tender pastry.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the pastry rise and lighten.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it thicken and brown as it cooks.
Apple
Adds moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the filling.

The step that matters

Cut in lard until crumbly. Stopping when the lard is cut into fine, crumbly pieces keeps the pastry tender. Overworking develops gluten, which makes it tough.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, allspice, walnut, butter, flour):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, allspice, walnut, butter, 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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