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
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Flour the fruit before mixing.
Make the batter
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the raisins, almonds, flour, brandy, nutmeg, and citron.
Bake
Pour the batter into prepared pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,781 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
-
Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,115 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and richness.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter for sweetness and a tender crumb.
- Raisins
- Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.
- Almonds
- Add crunch, richness and nutty flavor to the batter.
The step that matters
Flour the fruit before mixing. Coating the raisins, almonds and citron in flour helps keep them suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan during baking.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, raisin, almond, flour, brandy):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, raisin, almond, flour, brandy. 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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