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Baking

Poor Man's Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with lard, sugar, eggs, sour milk, flour, spices, raisins, baking soda, and optional nuts and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Poor Man's Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the lard or drippings with the sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and sour milk, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water or coffee and add to the mixture.

  5. Combine all ingredients, adding chopped nuts, citron, and lemon peel if desired.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lard or drippings
Provides fat that creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, moist crumb.
Sugar
Creams with the fat to trap air and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that leavens the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water or coffee and add to the mixture.. Baking soda needs an acid, here the sour milk, to release gas and lift the batter. Dissolving it fully before adding helps it spread evenly so the cake rises without pockets of soda.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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