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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake made with currants, raisins, citron, molasses, wine, brandy, and spices, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

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).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the molasses, wine, and brandy.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the currants, raisins, citron, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour.

  2. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of water and add it to the batter.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once heated.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, slightly bittersweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow. A long, gentle bake at 300°F lets the dense, fruit-heavy batter cook through evenly without the outside burning before the center sets. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms it is fully baked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, butter, egg, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, butter, egg, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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