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Dessert

Rich Fruit Cake

A cake made with eggs, butter, flour, spices, golden syrup, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, currants, raisins, sultanas, candied peel, salt, lemon essence, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Rich 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the flour, mixed spice, golden syrup, baking soda, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

  3. Stir in the sugar, currants, raisins, sultanas, and candied peel.

  4. Add milk gradually until the mixture reaches a nice consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin.

  2. Bake for about 1.5 hours or until a skewer 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through fat.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic golden syrup to help the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lighten the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. The batter should be loose enough to bake evenly without becoming runny. Adding milk a little at a time lets you judge the consistency, since flour absorbs liquid at different rates and overmixing can toughen the crumb.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, syrup, sugar, raisin, lemon. 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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