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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, raisins, citron, currants, eggs, spices, brandy, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Whip the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour until well combined.

  4. Chop the fruit and fold it into the batter, adding it in alternating handfuls.

  5. Stir in the spices and brandy last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake for 3 hours in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as the batter sets.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed with butter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the fruit in alternating handfuls. Heavy fruit sinks to the bottom of a thick batter if dropped in all at once. Folding it in gradually spreads it evenly so the cake bakes with fruit distributed throughout.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, raisin, egg, nutmeg, clove, ginger. 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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