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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, spices, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and then the molasses with the dissolved baking soda.

  3. Mix the flour with the remaining ingredients and add to the mixture. Mix thoroughly and pour into a prepared baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for six hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 form a structure that traps air and gives a tender crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the batter hold air when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as the eggs and butter cook.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven for six hours. A low, steady temperature over a long time lets the dense, fruit-heavy batter cook through evenly without the outside burning before the center sets.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, currant, 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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