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Dessert

Fruit Cake

Fruit cake made with raisins, currants, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, brandy, wine, spices, almonds, candied citrus, molasses, and leavening.

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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the raisins and currants with a little flour to coat them.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the brandy, wine, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and almond slices.

  6. Fold in the flour and the coated fruit mixture.

  7. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.

  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
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its structure as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the cake the structure that holds the fruit.
Sugar
Creamed with butter it aids aeration, and it adds sweetness and helps browning.
Raisins
Dried fruit that stays moist and chewy, adding sweetness and body to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only while stiff; overmixing or stirring them in deflates the foam, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light. Fold gently and keep the batter airy.

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.

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