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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, molasses, sour milk, raisins, currants, eggs, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Make the batter

  1. Add the molasses and sour milk, mixing well.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add them to the mixture.

  3. Incorporate the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and flour, mixing until combined.

  4. Fold in the raisins and currants.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes and fill with chocolate filling.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter hold its shape as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk and molasses to release gas that lifts the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as the starches set.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb, with creaming trapping air in the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness and dark color, and its acidity helps the baking soda work.
Sour milk
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and keeps the crumb tender.

The step that matters

Incorporate the baking soda and flour. Baking soda reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release carbon dioxide. Mixing it in evenly and baking promptly keeps the gas bubbles that give the cake its lift.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, milk, raisin, egg, 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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