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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with flour, butter, brown sugar, dried fruit, spices, and brewed coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon until just combined.

  4. Fold in the chopped raisins, currants, and citron.

  5. Finally, mix in the brewed coffee until evenly distributed.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake, adds moisture, and contributes caramel-like flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy texture, moisture, and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Brewed coffee
Adds liquid for moisture and a deeper, slightly bitter background flavor.

The step that matters

Mixing the eggs in one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too fast can cause curdling, which weakens the batter's texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, nutmeg, clove. 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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