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Dessert

Jelly Fruit Cake

A layered cake made with batter, raisins, citron, and flavored with molasses, brandy, spices, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Jelly 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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Add eggs and milk, mixing well.

  3. In another bowl, combine flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  4. Divide batter in half; to one half add molasses, brandy, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, raisins, and citron.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the light batter into jelly tins to form two layers and the fruit batter into another two tins.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  3. Once slightly cool, spread jelly between the layers and top with a light layer of jelly.

  4. Finish by spreading white frosting over the entire cake.

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

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the crumb as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness to the fruit batter.

The step that matters

Baking until a toothpick comes out clean. Layers baked too short stay wet and collapse, while overbaking dries the crumb. Testing the centre with a toothpick shows when the structure has set.

“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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