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Dessert

Black Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with sugar, butter, citron, currants, raisins, flour, molasses, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Black Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Divide the flour into two equal parts.

  2. Into one part, add the cinnamon, grated nutmeg, cloves, and allspice.

  3. Mix the fruit thoroughly with the remaining half of the flour.

  4. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  5. Add the yolks of the eggs to the creamed mixture.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water. Stir the dissolved baking soda into the molasses.

  7. Pour the molasses mixture into the cake bowl.

  8. Add the flour and spices. Stir until smooth.

  9. Incorporate the flour and fruit mixture.

  10. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into baking tins lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for two 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten stiff and folded in, lighten its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep sweetness with a hint of bitterness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness, moisture, and bulk to the fruit cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that lightens the heavy batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously would deflate it and leave a denser cake.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

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