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Dessert

Plain Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, flour, raisins, currants, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Plain 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 the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and dark brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk and molasses until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  7. Fold in the raisins and currants.

  8. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and richness.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter; whipped whites lighten the texture and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as the batter sets in the oven.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses notes deepen the flavour and browning.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a robust, slightly acidic flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter; stirring vigorously would deflate it and make the cake dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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