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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with brown sugar, butter, flour, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, spices, wine, brandy, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot 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).

  2. Sift the spices together in a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, stir together the brown sugar and egg yolks.

  2. Beat the butter until creamy and add it to the sugar and yolks.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Combine the sugar, yolk, and butter mixture with the sifted spices and liquors.

  5. Gradually add the flour, then fold in the beaten egg whites and the fruit.

Bake

  1. If using one loaf, pour the batter into a prepared loaf pan and bake for 3 to 4 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness, tenderness and a fine crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whites beaten to froth lighten its structure.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the batter and fruit together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper, caramel-like flavour.
Raisins
Provide chewy sweetness and moisture within the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which helps the cake rise and stay light. Stirring vigorously would deflate the foam and leave a denser crumb.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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