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Dessert

New England Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with mincemeat, molasses, sugar, butter, egg, baking soda, cold coffee, flour, vanilla, and optional dried citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

New England Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the mincemeat and molasses thoroughly.

  2. Add the sugar, butter, egg, and baking soda dissolved in cold coffee.

  3. Stir in the flour and vanilla until well combined.

  4. If desired, add dried citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a baking pan and bake at 300°F (150°C) until done.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 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. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Mincemeat (in the method)
Provides the bulk of the fruit and spice flavour that defines the cake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth and moisture, and darkens the crumb.
Flour
Builds the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the batter as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb structure.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, molasses, sugar, butter, egg, coffee, flour. 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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