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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, citron, figs, spices, molasses, and butter, baked for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

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).

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Mix the flour with allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients.

  5. Stir in the raisins, currants, citron, and figs, ensuring they are well floured.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 3 hours, then frost when cold.

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

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

  3. Fig + allspicetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

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

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 to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the flavor of the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Stir in the fruit well floured. Dusting the raisins, currants, citron, and figs with flour helps keep them suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan during baking.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, fig, sugar, flour, butter, egg, 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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