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Dessert

A Rich Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with flour, butter, sugar, spices, dried fruit, almonds, raisins, citron, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Rich 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter with your hands until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the flour and sugar, alternating with the beaten egg whites and yolks.

  4. Mix until the batter is light and fluffy.

  5. Stir in the mace, nutmeg, brandy, currants, and almonds.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a cake mold and pour in part of the batter.

  2. Layer with some raisins and citron, then repeat until all ingredients are used.

  3. Bake for 3 hours, covering with paper once it has risen and the top is colored.

Cool and finish

  1. Allow to cool and ice as desired.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and a tender texture by coating flour and trapping air when creamed.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust while adding moisture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, richness and lift when beaten.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor and helps keep the cake moist.

The step that matters

Covering with paper during baking. Once the top has colored, the surface can darken or dry before the centre is set. Covering it with paper slows browning so the interior can bake through evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, currant, almond, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, currant, almond, raisin. 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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