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Dessert

Layer Fruit Cake

A layered cake made with sugar, butter, flour, egg whites, baking powder, raisins, citron, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Layer 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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the flour, egg whites, and baking powder, mixing well.

  4. Set aside 1 tablespoon of the batter.

  5. To the reserved batter, add the raisins, citron, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and brandy.

Bake the layers

  1. Pour the main batter into two cake pans and bake until golden.

  2. Pour the fruit batter into one layer and bake until set.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, layer the cakes with soft frosting, placing the fruit layer in the middle.

  2. Frost the top if desired.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the cake's structure once it sets in the oven.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift, helping the batter hold its rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the layers rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Bake the fruit layer until set. The fruit batter is heavy and wet. It must bake through until firm, or the middle stays gummy and the layer will not hold when stacked.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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