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Dessert

Egoless Fruit Cake

A baked fruit cake made with raisins, brown sugar, lard, spices, and flour, without eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Egoless 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. In a pot, combine brown sugar, lard, cinnamon, water, raisins, and cloves.

  2. Boil the mixture for three minutes, then let it cool.

  3. Once cool, add the dissolved baking soda, flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well and pour into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide moisture, sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic raisin mixture to help the cake rise and lighten.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking powder
Adds additional lift so the cake rises evenly in the oven.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture in the crumb.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the baking soda. Baking soda is activated by the liquid and acid in the mixture, and adding it while the mixture is still very hot can cause it to react too quickly and unevenly. Cooling first lets the rise happen more steadily once it is in the oven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, raisin, flour. 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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