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Dessert

Christmas Fruit-cake

A baked cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, raisins, currants, citron, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Christmas Fruit-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Seed and chop the raisins.

  2. Wash and dry the currants.

  3. Shred the citron.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Mix in the well-beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Stir in half the flour, the spices, and the whipped egg whites.

  4. Add the remaining flour and the dredged fruit.

  5. Mix in the brandy.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  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

Eggs
Whipped whites lift the batter and yolks enrich its structure and texture.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender crumb and richness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and moisture to the cake.
Currants
Add tart, concentrated fruit flavor and moisture throughout the batter.

The step that matters

Stir in half the flour, the spices, and the whipped egg whites. Folding in whipped whites gently keeps the air they hold, which helps the cake rise. Overmixing deflates the foam and makes the crumb dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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