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Dessert

Molasses Feuit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, brown sugar, sweet milk, molasses, flour, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, currants or raisins, nutmeg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Molasses Feuit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  3. Add the sweet milk and molasses, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

Make the batter

  1. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  2. Fold in the chopped currants or raisins, grated nutmeg, and a little brandy.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a dark color to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Currants or raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until a toothpick comes out clean. Low, slow heat lets the centre set evenly before the outside darkens too much. Dense fruit cakes can look done outside while the middle is still wet, so test the centre rather than relying on colour or time alone.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, molasses, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, molasses, flour, egg, cream. 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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