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Dessert

Long Branch Fruit Cake

A spiced fruit cake made with raisins, flour, sugar, butter, wine, brandy, coffee, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

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

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the raisins, flour, sugar, butter, grape wine, rice brandy, cold coffee, molasses, and all spices.

  2. Add the baking powder and chopped citron, and mix well.

  3. Pour the batter into pound-cake pans.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until done.

Cool and store

  1. Let the cake cool, then wrap it in cloth and store in a cool place.

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. Grape + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together819 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-p-menthene-8-thiol (grapefruit).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Grape + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together839 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and lightens.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep color to the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until done. Baking at a low temperature for long enough cooks the dense, fruit-heavy batter through to the centre. Underbaking leaves it gummy, while overbaking dries it out. Doneness is best judged by a skewer coming out clean.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, sugar, butter, wine, rice, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, sugar, butter, wine, rice, brandy. 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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