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Dessert

Wedding Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, citron, figs, sherry, port, brandy, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and port wine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 132 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Wedding Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Soak the fruit

  1. Combine the raisins, currants, sliced citron, and figs in a bowl.

  2. Pour the sherry, port wine, and brandy or whiskey over the fruit and let it stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain any excess liquor that has not soaked into the fruit.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the mace, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and browned flour.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the mixture just before incorporating the fruit.

  5. Fold in the egg whites gently until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake at 300°F (150°C) 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. Sherry + port winetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Fig + port winetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and binding to the batter.
Egg whites
Folded in last, they add lift and an airy structure to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Browned flour
Provides structure and a deeper, toasty flavour.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chew and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, fig, sherry, port wine, brandy, butter, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, fig, sherry, port wine, brandy, butter, sugar. 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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