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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake made with currants, raisins, citron, molasses, coffee, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together nutmeg, allspice, cloves, salt, cinnamon, flour, and baking powder.

  2. Add currants, raisins, and citron to the dry ingredients.

  3. Beat eggs into molasses, then cream butter with brown sugar and mix with molasses.

  4. Add strong coffee and then the dry mixture; beat well.

Bake

  1. Pour into a prepared pan and bake for 2.5 hours at 300°F (150°C), being careful not to burn.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm during the long bake.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb to the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lighten the heavy batter.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow without burning. A long bake at a low temperature lets the dense, sugar-rich batter cook through to the center. Sugars and molasses brown and scorch quickly at high heat, so the cake needs careful watching near the end.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, allspice, clove, cinnamon, flour, raisin, egg. 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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