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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A sweet baked cake made with eggs, butter, flour, sugar, citron, currants, raisins, brandy, sherry, molasses, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  4. Brown the flour and dredge the fruit in it.

  5. Add the beaten egg whites and the fruit alternately to the mixture.

  6. Stir the baking soda into the molasses along with the spices.

  7. Combine everything and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake for 4 hours.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 beaten whites add lift and a lighter crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color, and works with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake for 4 hours. A dense, fruit-heavy batter cooks slowly at low heat. Baking too hot can scorch the outside before the centre sets, so keep the oven at 300°F and check for doneness.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar, raisin, brandy, sherry. 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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