Name: Fruit Cake Without Eggs
Ingredients: 1 pound fat pork, chopped fine; 1 pint boiling water or coffee; 2 cups molasses; 1 cup sugar; 1.5 pounds raisins; 0.5 pound currants; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 8 cups flour

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Fruit Cake Without Eggs

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.

Prepare the batter

Pour boiling water or coffee over the chopped pork.
Add molasses and sugar, mixing well.
Stir in raisins and currants.
Add baking soda and flour gradually, mixing until combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fat pork: Adds richness and moisture as it melts into the batter during baking.
Molasses: Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the cake.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Raisins: Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, coffee, molasses, sugar, raisin, flour):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, coffee, molasses, sugar, raisin, 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.