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Dessert

Fruit Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Mix in the nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and mace.

  4. Stir in the molasses and sour milk until well combined.

  5. Add the egg yolks, brandy or fruit juice, and flour alternately with the beaten egg whites.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and mix it in thoroughly.

  7. Toss the raisins, currants, and chopped citron with 2 tablespoons of flour, then fold them into the batter.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans and bake for 2 hours.

  2. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans before removing.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving a tender, fine crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses notes deepen the cake's flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter.
Egg whites
Beaten to foam, they add lift and an airy structure to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that raises the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that makes the cake light. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the batter and yields a dense cake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, molasses, milk):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, molasses, milk. 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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