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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, wine, brandy, spices, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. 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 the fruit

  1. Pick the raisins and currants, and soak them in liquor overnight.

  2. Seed the raisins.

Make the batter

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

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

  3. Stir in the soaked raisins, currants, citron, wine, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, and baking powder until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 to 4 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn lighter.
Raisins
Add moisture and sweetness, softened further by soaking in liquor.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps cream with butter to hold air.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow. A slow oven lets the heavy, fruit-filled batter cook through to the centre without the outside burning. Rushing with high heat can leave the middle raw while the crust darkens too fast.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, raisin, egg, madeira wine, brandy, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, raisin, egg, madeira wine, brandy, cinnamon. 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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