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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugars together.

  2. Add the cinnamon, cloves, molasses, and sour milk to the mixture.

  3. Incorporate the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour, alternating with the beaten egg whites.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and mix it in.

  6. Toss the raisins, currants, and citron with 2 tablespoons of flour, then fold into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake for 2 hours.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in, add lightness and help structure.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color to the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding the fruit into the batter. Dusting the raisins, currants, and citron with flour helps them stay suspended instead of sinking to the bottom during baking. Fold gently so the batter keeps the air trapped in it.

Swap the currant

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

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

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