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Dessert

Fruit Cake

Fruit Cake is made with raisins, currants, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, brandy, wine, spices, almond-meats, candied lemon, citron, molasses, and baking soda or powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  2. In another bowl, combine the raisins, currants, and flour, then add the baking soda or baking powder.

  3. Mix the fruit with a little of the flour to prevent sinking.

  4. Add the fruit mixture to the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Stir in the brandy, wine, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond-meats, candied lemon, citron, and molasses.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 3 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. 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. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  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
Egg yolks bind the batter and add richness and structure as the cake sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, sweet flavor.
Baking soda or baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dense batter rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Mix the fruit with a little of the flour. Flour coats the raisins and currants so they are less likely to sink to the bottom of the dense batter during the long bake.

Swap the currant

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

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

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