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Dessert

Black Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with brown sugar, butter, molasses, almonds, flour, candied peel, citron, wine, figs, brandy, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Black Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat together the brown sugar, butter, and egg yolks.

  2. Add the molasses, chopped almonds, browned flour, candied lemon peel, citron, wine, figs, brandy, and baking soda.

  3. Mix until well combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a tube pan.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Let cool before serving.

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. Almond + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  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 help set the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Browned flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a dark color to the cake.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the crumb moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to give some lift.

The step that matters

Bake for 2 to 3 hours at a low temperature. A dense fruit cake needs slow, gentle heat so the center sets fully without the outside drying out or burning. Check doneness before removing it from the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, almond, flour, wine, fig. 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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