Name: Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon New Orleans molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup fruit juice; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon nutmeg; 1 teaspoon cloves; 8 eggs; ½ lb English walnuts

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

Prepare

Soak the spices overnight in the fruit juice.
Mix all ingredients as you would for any other cake, adding the fruit last.

Bake and finish

Bake for 2 hours.
Make a boiled icing flavored with orange flower water and apply it to the top in a decorative design, leaving the sides uncovered.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + walnuttop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,230 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,147 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Provide structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
Baking soda: Reacts to lift and lighten the batter as it bakes.
New orleans molasses: Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the cake.
English walnuts: Add texture and a rich, nutty bite throughout the crumb.

Swap the walnut

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Walnutthe original
Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, egg. 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.