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Dessert

Simple Fruit Cake

A spiced fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, currants, raisins, citron, spices, milk, brandy, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Simple Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until creamy.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the spices and brandy.

Make the batter

  1. Add the fruit rolled in a little flour to the butter mixture.

  2. Mix the baking soda into the remaining flour and stir it alternately with the milk into the batter.

  3. Finally, fold in the egg whites beaten to stiff peaks.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 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.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb, and creaming with sugar traps air in the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding, while whipped whites add lift and structure.
Baking soda
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture, along with the raisins, to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the batter and leaves a dense cake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, currant, raisin, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, currant, raisin, clove, allspice. 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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