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Dessert

Rich Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, raisins, currants, flour, spices, molasses, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rich 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in the eggs two at a time.

  4. Add the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, molasses, and baking soda dissolved in boiling water.

  5. Sift the flour and mix in part of it with the fruit.

  6. Gradually add the remaining flour and mix until combined.

Bake and store

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Store the cakes in a tin box.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift as they are beaten in.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep, dark color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and adds lift, helping the cake rise and open up.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. A cake this rich with fruit can look set on top while the center is still wet. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms the batter has fully set, so the cake does not sink or turn gummy as it cools.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, raisin, flour, lemon, cinnamon, 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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