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Dessert

English Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, candied peel, butter, sugar, molasses, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

English 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 the fruit

  1. Wash the raisins and currants thoroughly and ensure they are perfectly dry.

Make the batter

  1. Add the chopped citron, then the candied orange peel, then the candied lemon peel.

  2. Add the brown sugar, then the grated nutmeg, then the molasses, then the partially melted butter.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, then the brandy.

  4. Mix in just enough sifted flour to create a thin batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 4 hours.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the crumb as they plump during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as fat coats the flour.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake and adds moisture and a caramel depth of flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the cake its structure.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, treacly flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as the cake sets.

The step that matters

Drying the raisins and currants. Wet fruit releases water into the batter, which can make the cake heavy and gummy and cause the fruit to sink. Thorough drying keeps the batter balanced.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, orange, lemon, butter, sugar, nutmeg, molasses):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, orange, lemon, butter, sugar, nutmeg, molasses. 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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