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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, spices, eggs, flour, brandy, lemon, candied peel, nuts, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

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 the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the mixed spices and molasses, then the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  4. Mix in part of the flour, brandy, and lemon juice.

  5. Add the remaining flour and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Flour the fruit and nuts, then gently fold them into the batter.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared baking pan.

  3. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creams with butter for aeration and adds sweetness and browning.
Dark molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a rich brown color.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Overmixing or deflating them with vigorous stirring knocks out that air, leaving a dense cake. Fold just until combined.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, egg, flour, brandy, lemon. 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.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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