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Dessert

Thanksqivinq Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, citron, raisins, currants, baking powder, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Thanksqivinq Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then combine them.

  4. Mix in the citron, raisins, currants, baking powder, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and mace.

  5. Flour the raisins and currants to prevent them from settling.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake for 4 hours.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and give structure as the whites are beaten separately and folded in.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as the cake sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and becomes lighter.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness to the cake.
Currants
Add moisture and concentrated fruity sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Flouring the raisins and currants. Dry fruit is heavy and sinks to the bottom of thick batter during baking. Coating it in flour helps it cling to the batter and stay suspended in the crumb.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, allspice, clove. 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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White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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