Skip to main content
Dessert

Christmas Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with eggs, raisins, currants, citron, molasses, sherry, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Christmas 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until well mixed.

  2. Add the raisins, currants, and chopped citron to the eggs.

  3. Stir in the molasses and sherry.

  4. Season with spices according to your preference.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for approximately 1 hour 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

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

  5. Currant + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,817 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into the cake's structure as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Citron
Adds tart, candied-citrus flavour and chewy bite.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep brown colour.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a little moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. A dense, fruit-heavy cake can look set on the outside while the centre is still wet. A clean toothpick shows the centre has set, so the cake holds together when sliced.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, raisin, molasses, sherry):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raisin, molasses, sherry. 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes