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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with sugar, eggs, flour, nut cream, filberts, celery, nutmeg, raisins, citron, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 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. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the beaten eggs, sugar, flour, nut cream, ground filberts, minced celery, nutmeg, chopped raisins, chopped citron, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into pans lined with oiled paper.

  3. Bake for one hour.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  3. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Beaten eggs provide structure and help the batter rise and set as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown during baking.
White flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its starch sets in the oven.
Filberts
Ground nuts add richness, fat and nutty flavour to the crumb.
Raisins
Add chewy moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs separately. Beating the yolks and whites apart lets the whites hold air for lightness, and that air must be kept in the batter when the other ingredients are folded through. Mixing too hard or too long can deflate the batter and leave a dense cake.

Swap the filbert

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, cream, celery, nutmeg, raisin. 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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