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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A steamed and baked cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, currants, citrus peel, raisins, spices, brandy, sherry, cider, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs two at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until combined.

  4. Fold in the currants, citron peel, orange peel, and chopped raisins.

  5. Add the mixed spices, brandy, sherry, boiled cider, and rose water, and mix well.

Steam and bake

  1. Line a watertight tin with paper and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Cover and steam for three hours.

  3. Place the tin in a baking pan filled with water and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about an hour.

  4. Bake until the cake cracks slightly or is thoroughly dry.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and deepen in flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, and add richness and lift to the batter.
Sifted flour
Forms the structure that holds the dense fruit and batter together as it sets.
Currants
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the cake's moisture.

The step that matters

Baking until thoroughly dry. Fruit cakes this dense can stay wet at the center if underbaked, which makes them gummy and prone to spoiling. Baking until the surface cracks slightly and the cake feels dry ensures it is fully set through.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

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