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Dessert

Black Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with brown flour, brown sugar, molasses, and dried fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the molasses and eggs, mixing well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the brown flour, baking soda, mace, cinnamon, and cloves.

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

  5. Fold in the currants, stoned raisins, and chopped citron.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before storing in an airtight container.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Brown flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, depth of flavor, and deep color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the cake rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Baking until a toothpick comes out clean. A dense fruit batter can look set on top while the center is still wet. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms the cake has baked through, and removing it too early leaves a gummy crumb.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, currant, raisin, butter, molasses, cinnamon. 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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