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Dessert

South Carolina Fruit Cake

A rich fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, almonds, and soaked in brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

South Carolina Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the prepared fruit overnight in the brandy.

Make and bake the cake

  1. Mix the ingredients according to the directions for butter cakes.

  2. Add the soaked fruit last.

  3. Divide the batter into two well-greased pans lined with light brown paper.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 2.5 hours.

  5. Keep a pan of water in the oven while baking and cover the cake after the first half hour.

  6. Lift the pans slightly above the oven floor using a wire rack to avoid burning.

  7. Test for doneness with a clean knitting needle; it should come 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to create a tender, structured batter that holds air.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Brandy
Soaks the fruit, adding moisture and aroma to the finished cake.
Raisins
Supply chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft batter.

The step that matters

Covering the cake after the first half hour. Covering the cake after the first half hour shields its surface from direct heat, so it bakes through without over-browning or drying out.

Swap the currant

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

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

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