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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, wine, brandy, rose water, raisins, currants, citron, walnuts, figs, spices, vanilla, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Stir in half of the flour.

  3. Add the spices and then the remaining flour.

  4. Gradually mix in the fruit, nuts, and figs, ensuring they are well floured.

  5. Add the syrup from the preserved figs, followed by the vanilla and brandy, and beat thoroughly.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it gradually to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two large cake pans and bake until done.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the heavy fruit and nuts together as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic components to help the cake rise.
Walnuts
Add crunch and texture against the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it gradually to the mixture.. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed so it reacts uniformly; clumps can leave bitter pockets and uneven rising in the cake.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, flour, wine, brandy, rose):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, flour, wine, brandy, rose. 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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