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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake made with butter, brown sugar, browned flour, molasses, milk, sherry, eggs, baking soda, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the browned flour, molasses, milk, and sherry, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs, baking soda, cloves, allspice, and grated nutmeg until fully combined.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let the cakes cool before removing from the pans.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sherry + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Dark brown sugar
Creamed with butter for lift and adds sweetness, moisture and deep caramel flavor.
Browned flour
Provides the structure of the cake and a nutty, toasted flavor.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air bubbles that expand in the oven, so under-creaming leads to a dense cake.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, molasses, milk, sherry, egg. 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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