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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, sweet cake with raisins, currants, citron, nuts, and spices baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Brown the flour before measuring.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Add the grated nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and mace; mix well.

  3. Stir in the molasses and sour milk, then add the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Combine the flour and baking soda, then add alternately with the beaten egg whites.

  5. Fold in the chopped nuts.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan lined with several layers of paper, the last layer buttered.

  2. Bake for 3 hours.

  3. Let cool in the pan, then dust with flour and ice if desired.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and dark color to the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and eggs alternately. Mixing gently in alternating additions keeps the batter smooth and light. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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