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Dessert

Dark Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, currants, citron, almonds, brandy, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Dark Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and sifted flour mixed with baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and mace.

  4. Beat the mixture until light and fluffy.

  5. Stir in the raisins, currants, citron, and almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

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

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 whites, beaten and folded in, lighten its structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that leavens the batter. Overmixing or stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so the cake bakes up denser and flatter.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, brandy, wine, raisin, almond. 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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