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Dessert

Wedding Fruit Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and raisin work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Wedding Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

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

  4. Stir in the molasses and grated lemon.

  5. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and nutmeg.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

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

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased cake pans.

  2. Bake for 2 to 3 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  2. Currant + raisintop 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. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Fig + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 during baking.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, fine crumb and rich flavor.
Brown sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness, moisture, and a deeper caramel flavor.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the fruit and sets the cake's crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough. Overmixing after the flour goes in makes the crumb dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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