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Dessert

A Plain Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with butter, brown sugar, sour milk, flour, eggs, spices, baking soda, raisins, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Plain 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.

  3. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until combined.

  5. Beat in the eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

  6. Fold in the raisins and currants last.

Bake

  1. Divide the batter between two greased cake pans.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to a soft, deep-flavoured crumb.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda with the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to release carbon dioxide. Its reaction with the sour milk drives the rise, so the batter should be mixed and baked promptly before the gas escapes.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

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