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Baking

Fruit Cake

A dense, sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, molasses, spices, brandy, flour, raisins, currants, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the beaten eggs, molasses, and dissolved baking soda; mix well.

  3. Stir in the grated nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and brandy.

  4. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  5. Flour the raisins, currants, and candied peel, then fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the cake sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once heated and set.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cake rise and darken.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Flouring the fruit before folding. Dusting the raisins, currants, and peel with flour helps them stay suspended in the thick batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking.

“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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