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Molasses Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, eggs, molasses, raisins, currants, and spices baked in a loaf pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Molasses 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).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks and molasses, and beat well.

  3. Sift the baking soda and mixed spices with the flour.

  4. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and then the fruit.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake for 1 ½ hours, or for 30 minutes if using small pans.

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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Currant + raisintop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to lighten the batter and give it structure as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to help the cake rise and darken.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whole and beaten to soft peaks. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the batter so the cake rises evenly and stays light.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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