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Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, coffee, sorghum, spices, raisins, currants, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Add the beaten eggs, cold coffee, and sorghum; mix well.

  2. Stir in the baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and vanilla extract.

  3. Fold in the raisins, currants, and flour until just combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased bread pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sorghum + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Sorghum + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and crumb together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sorghum and coffee to help the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit and flour. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stir only until the flour is just combined so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, coffee, sorghum, cinnamon, 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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