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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, spices, and wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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

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. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture.

  6. Fold in the egg whites, currants, raisins, citron, and spices.

  7. Stir in the wine, brandy, or whiskey until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for several hours until a toothpick inserted 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter and the whites, folded in, lighten its structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Currants
Dried fruit adding sweetness, chew and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Adding flour in portions keeps the batter smooth and evenly combined, so the cake bakes with an even texture instead of lumps or dense pockets.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, currant, raisin, wine. 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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