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Dessert

Pound Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with flour, sugar, fruit, nuts, butter, eggs, spices, brandy, and molasses baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Pound Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Brown the flour in a pan.

  3. Chop the nuts slightly.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, citron, raisins, currants, candied fruits, and nuts.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites to the mixture last.

  4. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + mixed nutstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + mixed nutstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten whites trap air, giving the heavy batter lift and a lighter crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dense fruit and nuts together as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, coating the flour for a softer crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown during the long bake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that gives lift. Adding them last and mixing gently keeps that air from collapsing, so the heavy batter stays as light as possible.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, fig, dates, mixed nuts, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, fig, dates, mixed nuts, butter. 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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