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Dessert

Wedding Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with eggs, brown sugar, molasses, butter, citrus zest, figs, citron, currants, raisins, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and raisin work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Wedding 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the molasses and eggs, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the lemon zest, figs, citron, currants, and raisins.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  2. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

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

  5. Fig + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses notes deepen the flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stopping as soon as the flour disappears keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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