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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake with molasses, butter, coffee, and dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, molasses, and butter until well combined.

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

  3. Stir in the strong cold coffee, baking soda, and all the spices.

  4. Fold in the currant jelly, raisins, currants, and citron.

  5. Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a 4-quart pan and a 6-quart pan.

  2. Bake for two 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender, moist crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten and starch structure that holds the cake together.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the cake moist.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until just combined.. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the cake. Stopping as soon as the flour disappears keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, egg, butter, coffee, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, egg, butter, coffee, cinnamon, allspice. 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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