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Dessert

Wedding Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, spices, wine, brandy, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Wedding 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Gradually add the browned flour, mixing until combined.

  5. Stir in the raisins, currants, citron, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, and cloves.

  6. Pour in the white wine, brandy, and rose water, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for several hours 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking, giving the cake structure.
Browned flour
Provides the main structure and a nutty, toasted aroma.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel note to the crumb.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while helping keep the cake moist.

The step that matters

Baking for several hours. A dense, fruit-heavy batter cooks slowly, and the centre sets only after long, gentle heat. Test with a toothpick in the thickest part before removing the cake, so it is fully set and not gummy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

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