Name: Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound sugar; ¾ pound butter; 8 eggs; 1 pound flour; 1 pound raisins; 1 pound currants; 2 nutmegs

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 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.
Fold in the raisins, currants, and grated nutmeg.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, binding the batter as the cake sets.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants: Add chewy texture and tart fruitiness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing flour in only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender instead of tough.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

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