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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A spiced, fruit-filled cake baked with butter, sugar, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a pan with two layers of heavy brown paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the butter and eggs together.

  2. Stir in the sour milk with the baking soda, then add the spices, whiskey, and flour, reserving some flour to dredge the fruit.

  3. Fold in the fruit and molasses until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 4 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps carry the spices through the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake; reserved flour keeps the fruit from sinking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel note that supports browning.

The step that matters

Fold in the fruit and molasses until well combined. Heavy fruit sinks toward the bottom of a dense batter unless it is coated in flour and evenly mixed in, so the cake bakes with fruit spread throughout.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, cinnamon, clove. 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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