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Dessert

Eggless Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with salt pork, raisins, currants, walnuts, molasses, sugar, spices, and no eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Eggless Fruit Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Eggless Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pork

  1. Pour hot water over the chopped salt pork and let it stand until nearly cold.

Make the batter

  1. Add baking soda, molasses, sugar, Sultana raisins, currants, walnuts, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and enough flour to make a very stiff batter, then mix well.

  2. Pour into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Adds fat and richness, so the cake stays moist and flavorful without eggs.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to produce gas that lifts and lightens the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor that promotes browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay soft as it bakes.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking soda with the molasses before baking. Baking soda needs an acid, such as molasses, to release gas. Its leavening works best when the batter is mixed well and baked soon after, so the cake rises evenly rather than staying dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, raisin, walnut, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, raisin, walnut, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, allspice. 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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