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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, raisins, almonds, citron, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until light and fluffy.

  2. Gradually add the softened butter and sugar, mixing until well combined.

  3. Sift in the flour and mix until just incorporated.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins, almonds, citron, and currants.

  5. Add the grated nutmeg, allspice, and cloves, mixing thoroughly.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten to hold air, then bind the batter and set the crumb as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add richness, tenderness and a fine texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and nuts together as the cake sets.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty richness that contrasts with the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for 3 hours. A low oven lets this dense, fruit-heavy batter cook through evenly without the outside over-browning or burning before the center sets. Test with a toothpick in the center before removing it.

Swap the currant

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

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

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