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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, molasses, sweet milk, spices, raisins, currants, citron, and flour.

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

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. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs, molasses, and sweet milk; mix well.

  3. Stir in the baking soda, allspice, nutmeg, and clove.

  4. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

  5. Gradually add the flour until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for a lighter crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the molasses here, to release gas that lifts the batter. Stirring it in with the spices and then baking promptly keeps that lift working in the oven.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, molasses, milk, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, molasses, milk, allspice, 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.

More fruit cake recipes

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

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