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Baking

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, spices, lemon, molasses, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the flour and mix well.

  4. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  5. Stir in the raisins, currants, and citron.

  6. Add the spices, lemon peel, lemon juice, molasses, and baking powder.

  7. Mix until all ingredients are well combined.

Bake

  1. Divide the batter between two pans.

  2. Bake for 1.5 to 2 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, and help hold the batter together as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become lighter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a darker color to the cake.

The step that matters

Baking for a long, slow time. Fruit cakes are dense and heavy, so a low oven bakes the center through without over-browning the outside. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms it is fully set before removing it.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, clove, 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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