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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, flour, sour cream, raisins, citron, almonds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the sour cream and dissolved baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until combined.

  5. Fold in the raisins, citron, almonds, and spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Brown sugar
Creams with butter for sweetness, moisture and a deep caramel flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and binding so the batter holds the fruit and nuts together.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that lightens the crumb.

The step that matters

Bake for 2 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. A dense fruit cake can look set outside while the center is still wet. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms it is fully baked, and a low oven helps the large cake cook through without over-browning.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, cream, raisin, almond. 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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