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Dessert

Pound Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with equal parts flour, sugar, citron, raisins, currants, candied fruits, nuts, butter, eggs, spices, brandy, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Pound 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

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

  2. Brown the flour.

  3. Chop the nuts slightly.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the molasses and brandy, mixing well.

  3. Incorporate the beaten egg whites last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake for 4 to 5 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + mixed nutstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + mixed nutstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and lift through the beaten whites, setting the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creams with the butter for texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the batter.

The step that matters

Incorporate the beaten egg whites last. Folding the beaten whites in gently at the end keeps the air they hold, so the cake rises and stays light rather than dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, fig, dates, mixed nuts, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, fig, dates, mixed nuts, butter. 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.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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