Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake with currants, citron, raisins, flour, butter, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, and coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Chop the currants, citron, and raisins and mix with 1 cup of flour.

  2. Sift 2 cups of flour with baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter with brown sugar, molasses, and beaten eggs.

  2. Add the flour mixture, fruit, and coffee to the creamed mixture.

  3. Stir well and pour into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Cinnamon and sugar 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries flavor through the batter.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour mixture, fruit, and coffee. Once flour is mixed with liquid, gluten begins to develop; stirring only until combined keeps the cake tender, while overmixing makes it tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, cinnamon, butter, sugar, molasses, egg. 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 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes