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Dessert

No Egg Fruit Cake

A moist fruit cake made without eggs, using sugar, molasses, sour milk, butter, spices, raisins, currants, and flour.

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

No Egg 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, molasses, sour milk, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Fold in the raisins and currants.

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

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for about 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the cake.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake a tender texture and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stopping once the flour is just combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits less well

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