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Dessert

Fruit and Nut Cake

A cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, cold water, hickory nuts, raisins, baking soda, cream of tartar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit and Nut 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. Rub the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  3. Add the egg yolks, cold water, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  6. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together.

  7. Gradually add the sifted flour and cream of tartar to the batter.

Add the fruit and nuts and bake

  1. Combine the hickory nuts and raisins.

  2. Dredge the nuts and raisins in flour.

  3. Fold the dredged nuts and raisins into the batter last.

  4. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  5. Bake for about 50-60 minutes 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the cake lift and an airy, light crumb, while yolks add richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, aiding rise and a tender texture.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat for a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a fine texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks; overmixing or deflating them while folding loses the lift that keeps the cake light.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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