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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, sweet cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, raisins, currants, citron, candied peel, wine, molasses, baking soda, spices, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. 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. 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 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the wine, molasses, and baking soda.

  4. Add the flour and spices, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the raisins, currants, citron, and chopped candied peels.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness when creamed with the sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and wine to help the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep, mildly acidic flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit after the batter is mixed. Heavy fruit sinks toward the bottom of a thick batter, so the cake can end up uneven. Folding gently keeps the fruit distributed without deflating the batter.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, raisin, lemon, orange, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, raisin, lemon, orange, wine. 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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