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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with currants, citron, raisins, molasses, and coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

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 the fruit and dry ingredients

  1. Chop the currants, citron, and raisins.

  2. Mix the chopped fruit with 1 cup of flour.

  3. Sift the remaining 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries flavor through the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and acidic ingredients to lift the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and a darker color through browning.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the cake moist and tender.

The step that matters

Stir well and pour into a greased baking pan. Thorough mixing spreads the fruit and leavening evenly, and a well-greased pan keeps the dense, sticky batter from sticking and tearing when the cake is removed.

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 →

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