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Dessert

Good Plain Fruit Cake

A spiced fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Good Plain 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Stir in the molasses and sour milk.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, egg yolks, spices, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

  5. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1 hour 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 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
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter and set the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lift the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

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

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

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