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Dessert

Hickory Nut Fruit Cake

A moist fruit cake made with hickory nuts, raisins, currants, and a buttery batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Hickory Nut 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the cream of tartar with the sifted flour.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the baking soda, warm milk, and vanilla extract to the butter mixture and mix well.

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

  6. Fold in the beaten eggs gently.

  7. Stir in the currants.

Add fruit and nuts and bake

  1. Layer the hickory nuts and raisins alternately through the dough.

  2. Pour the batter into three greased loaf pans.

  3. Bake for about 60-70 minutes 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, reacting with baking soda to produce lift and a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel-like depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten eggs gently. Overmixing after the eggs go in knocks out the air they hold and develops gluten, which can make the cake dense and tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, milk, vanilla, flour, 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.

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