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Dessert

Plain Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, milk, spices, citron, raisins, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

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

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  5. Fold in the citron, raisins, and currants.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 4 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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel-like flavor to the crumb.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk. Adding flour in portions alternated with liquid keeps the batter smooth and emulsified and limits gluten development, which keeps the cake tender rather than tough.

“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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