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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with sugar, butter, flour, raisins, currants, citron, brandy, sour cream, nutmeg, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Gradually add the flour, mixing well.

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

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the brandy, sour cream, grated nutmeg, and baking soda.

  5. Add this mixture to the fruit mixture and stir until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a toothpick 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chewy moisture and body to the finished cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a toothpick comes out clean.. A dense, fruit-heavy batter bakes slowly, and the centre can stay raw while the outside darkens. Testing with a toothpick confirms the middle is set before the cake is removed.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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