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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, dried fruit, butter, spices, treacle, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, currants, raisins, butter, cinnamon, spice, ginger, baking soda, cream of tartar, and treacle.

  2. Beat in the eggs and mix until well combined.

  3. Add enough milk to achieve a smooth batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 1.5 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and treacle to help the cake rise.
Treacle
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, molasses-like sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking soda and cream of tartar start reacting as soon as they are mixed in, so the batter should go into the oven promptly. Baking until a tester comes out clean confirms the centre has set, since a fruit-heavy cake can look done outside while still being wet inside.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, butter, cinnamon, ginger, cream. 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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