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Dessert

German Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, sugar, browned flour, raisins, currants, citron, eggs, spices, and soaked in brandy, whiskey, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the fruit and soak it in whiskey and port wine.

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

Make the batter

  1. Add the eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda dissolved in brandy to the mixture.

  2. Gradually mix in the browned flour until well combined.

  3. Fold in the soaked fruit.

  4. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and a softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Browned flour
Provides the structure of the cake and a toasted, nutty flavour.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Test for doneness with a toothpick. This batter is dense and heavy with soaked fruit, so the centre sets slowly. Baking until a toothpick comes out clean confirms the middle is fully set and not wet or gummy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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