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Dessert

Fruit Cake. No. 1

A dense, spiced fruit cake baked with currants, raisins, citron, spices, and liqueurs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. No. 1

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 fruit and batter

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

  2. Mix currants, raisins, and citron with sifted flour to prevent sinking.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together until light.

  4. Beat the eggs until very light, then stir them alternately with the flour into the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Gradually add the spices and liquor, then fold in the floured fruit mixture.

  6. Stir the batter vigorously for ten minutes.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour into a prepared baking pan and bake for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Ice the cake the next day.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift as they set in the batter during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed base.
Currants
Add fruit, moisture and sweetness throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add fruit, moisture and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter vigorously for ten minutes. Vigorous stirring develops gluten in the flour, which can toughen the cake. Fruit mixed in with sifted flour helps keep it from sinking to the bottom during the long bake.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, nutmeg, egg, brandy. 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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