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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with sugar, butter, flour, dried fruit, molasses, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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

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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the molasses and brandy.

  5. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, spices, and lemon rind.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing gently.

  7. Fold in the raisins, currants, figs, dates, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 2 to 3 hours, or until a toothpick 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help browning.
New orleans molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and deep sweet flavor to the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing gently.. Adding flour in portions and mixing gently keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, raisin, fig, dates, 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.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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