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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake made with sugar, butter, molasses, sweet milk, eggs, raisins, and dried fruits.

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

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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Stir in the molasses and sweet milk.

  4. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  5. Mix in the stoned raisins and any desired fruits.

  6. In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, spices, and flour.

  7. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for about 2 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a dark color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and molasses to lift the batter as it bakes.
Stoned raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and stirring until just combined keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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