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Dessert

Best Fruit Cake for Vveddingb

A rich fruit cake with raisins, figs, citron, molasses, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Best Fruit Cake for Vveddingb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs, then mix in the other ingredients except for the citron and figs.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in part of the molasses and add it to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

  5. Test a small amount in a patty tin; if it settles and seems too rich, add more flour.

Layer and bake

  1. Divide the dough equally for two cakes, layering dough, citron, and figs alternately.

  2. Line the pans with one layer of brown or heavy paper and three layers of yellow paper for the bottom, and one layer of yellow paper for the sides.

  3. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 to 3 hours, checking with a broom straw.

  4. Let the cakes cool in the pans, then turn them out bottom side up.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep, sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Dissolved in molasses, it reacts to help the cake rise and darken.
Raisins
Add moisture, chew and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking slowly at low heat. Dense, fruit-heavy batter needs gentle, long baking so the center sets before the outside over-browns or burns. Testing with a broom straw confirms doneness.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, molasses, cinnamon, clove. 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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White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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