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Dessert

Plain Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with sour cream, brown sugar, molasses, raisins, walnuts, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Plain 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sour cream, brown sugar, and molasses until well combined.

  2. In another bowl, combine the flour, raisins, chopped walnuts, and spices.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the wet mixture.

  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until just combined.

  5. Incorporate the salt and egg, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, keeping the crumb tender and moist.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to a soft, deep-flavored crumb.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter together as it sets.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the wet mixture. Baking soda needs an acid to react and raise the cake. Dissolving it fully before adding it spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises without green-tinged or bitter pockets.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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