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Dessert

Plain Fruit-cake

A spiced fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, coffee, and spices baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Fruit-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Heat the coffee and stir in the baking soda until dissolved.

  4. Mix the coffee into the molasses and combine with the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Sift the spices and flour together.

  6. Seed and coarsely chop the raisins.

  7. Clean the currants as directed in the previous recipe.

  8. Cut the citron into small pieces.

Make the batter

  1. Dust a little flour over the fruit, then stir the remaining flour into the mixture.

  2. Once well combined, fold in the fruit and finally add the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Bake in one large or two medium-sized tins for 1.5 hours in a slow oven (300°F/150°C), lining the tins with well-buttered paper.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 build a tender, rich crumb structure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and deep sweetness to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, with whites lightening the crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic coffee and molasses to produce lift.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit and egg whites. Heavy fruit dusted in flour is less likely to sink, and folding gently keeps the whites' trapped air so the cake rises and stays light.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cinnamon, sugar, clove, molasses, coffee, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cinnamon, sugar, clove, molasses, coffee, 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.

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