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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, brandy, spices, citron, currants, and raisins.

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

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

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

  3. Stir in the brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the citron, currants, and raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 2 to 2.5 hours 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that holds the cake's shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking time and doneness. A dense batter full of dried fruit bakes slowly, and the centre can stay wet while the outside darkens. Testing with a toothpick near the end of the long bake confirms the centre is set before removing the cake from the oven.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy, 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.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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