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Dessert

Fruit Cup Cake

A fruit cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, flour, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, baking soda, spices, and brandy.

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 Cup 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).

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Fold in the flour, baking soda, currants, raisins, and citron.

  5. Stir in the spices and a little brandy.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the cake rise and brown.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a darker color to the cake.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the dry ingredients and fruit. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the creamed butter and sugar, so the cake rises evenly. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake dense and tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, flour, egg, raisin, brandy. 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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