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Dessert

Fruit Cake, No. 1

A dense, spiced fruit cake made with butter, molasses, and dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake, No. 1

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 the fruit and nuts

  1. Seed and cut raisins.

  2. Wash and stem currants.

  3. Shave citron.

  4. Shell and break nuts.

  5. Blanch and split almonds.

  6. Dredge the fruit with flour, mixing well in a wooden tray to prevent sinking.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add molasses and sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  4. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  5. Sift together flour, baking soda, cloves, mace or nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  6. Gradually add the sifted dry mixture to the wet ingredients.

  7. Fold in the prepared fruit and nuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for three 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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 form a tender, aerated structure and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dredge the fruit with flour. Coating the fruit in flour helps it stay suspended in the batter rather than sinking to the bottom during baking.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, flour, egg, clove. 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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