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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A moist fruit cake made with white sugar, butter, raisins, currants, figs, egg whites, spices, baking soda, cream of tartar, sweet milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

White 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, whip together the sugar, butter, and egg whites until creamy.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in the sweet milk, then add to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the ground cloves, cinnamon, and fruits.

  4. Gradually mix in enough flour to make a stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into tins lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they whip and set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and creams with the sugar to trap air.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to release gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to the baking soda, helping produce gas for rising and a lighter crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter and fruit together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in the sweet milk. Baking soda needs an acid to release carbon dioxide for rising. Dissolving both evenly in the milk before mixing spreads the reaction through the batter, so the cake rises uniformly instead of in patches.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, raisin, fig, egg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, raisin, fig, egg, clove, cinnamon. 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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