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Dessert

Fruit Cake

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

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 until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs and molasses, mixing well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of water and add it to the mixture.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix the flour with the remaining ingredients and add to the wet mixture.

  2. Combine everything thoroughly and pour into a prepared baking pan.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 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. Raisin + curranttop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor and dark color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and lighten.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and crumb together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven for a long time. A low, steady heat for about six hours lets the dense batter set through the center without the outside burning. Rushing the heat can leave the middle raw or the edges scorched.

Swap the mace

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

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

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