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Dessert

Fruit Bars

Fruit Bars are baked bars made with sugar, butter, eggs, sour milk, flour, baking soda, baking powder, raisins, currants, nutmeats, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 Bars

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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the white sugar, brown sugar, and butter.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour milk.

  4. Mix in the baking soda, flour, baking powder, raisins, currants, nutmeats, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla until well combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased bread pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Allow to cool, then cut into bars.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 as the bars set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking powder
Adds additional lift so the bars rise and become tender.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once baked.
Butter
Adds fat that gives richness and a tender crumb.
Sour milk
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Fruit-filled batters can look set on top while the center is still wet. Testing the center ensures the structure has fully set and the bars are not gummy or underbaked.

Swap the currant

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

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

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