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.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the wine, rose water, brandy, sour cream, and molasses with baking soda.
In another bowl, combine the flour, spices, and fruit.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until well combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.
Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together494 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity, producing a tender crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to help the cake rise.
The step that matters
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Mixing flour with liquid develops gluten, so stirring only until combined keeps the cake tender rather than tough and dense.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, wine, rose):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits about as well
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, wine, rose. 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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