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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, figs, citron, molasses, grape juice, lemon juice, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Line a baking pan with parchment paper.

Make the batter

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

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

  3. Stir in the molasses, grape juice, and juice from the lemons.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, raisins, currants, figs, citron, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

  2. Bake for 3 to 3½ 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Currant + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps cream with butter to build a light texture.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and a dark color to the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake for 3 to 3½ hours until a toothpick comes out clean. A dense fruit cake can look set on top while the center is still wet. Long, low baking at 300°F lets heat reach the middle gently, and a toothpick test confirms the center has set without drying the edges.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, fig, butter, sugar, flour, egg, molasses. 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.

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White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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