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Dessert

Black Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, prunes, citron, almonds, figs, molasses, spices, and cider, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the spices in cider for 24 hours.

  2. Boil the lemons until a straw can pierce them.

  3. Flour the fruit.

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour, sugar, molasses, butter, and eggs without beating.

  2. Add dissolved baking soda in ⅓ cup of milk, then add the soaked spices and cider.

  3. Chop the boiled lemons and add them to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the floured fruit.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for four 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 and richness as they set in the oven.
Browned flour
Provides the body that holds the dense fruit together while baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and liquid to lift the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the floured fruit. Flouring the fruit keeps it suspended rather than sinking to the bottom. Folding gently preserves the air and structure built in the batter, so the cake rises evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, almond, butter, sugar, flour, fig, egg. 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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