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Dessert

Old Time Fruit Cake

A dense, sweet cake made with currants, citron, molasses, and brandy, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Old Time Fruit 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 oven to 300°F (150°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, mix currants, baking soda, chopped citron, ground cloves, sugar, ground cinnamon, softened butter, ground nutmeg, flour, ground allspice, black molasses, and brandy until well combined.

  2. Pour mixture into greased cake pan.

  3. Bake slowly for four hours.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through fat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Black molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and dark color.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness, chew, and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for four hours. A long, low bake at 300°F lets the dense batter cook through evenly without the outside burning or the center staying raw. Checking doneness near the end helps prevent a dry or undercooked cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, sugar, cinnamon, butter, nutmeg, flour, allspice. 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.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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