Skip to main content
Dessert

Wedding Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with eggs, brown sugar, molasses, butter, lemon zest, figs, citron, currants, raisins, spices, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fig and raisin work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Wedding 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the brown sugar and molasses until well combined.

  3. Add the soft butter and lemon zest, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Fold in the figs, citron, currants, and raisins.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the cinnamon, cloves, mace, grated nutmeg, baking soda, and flour.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for 2 to 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. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Fig + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 tenderness through fat that coats the flour and softens the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in molasses and brown sugar to lift and lighten the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking until fully done. A long bake at moderate heat must reach the centre to set the eggs and flour. Pulling the cake early leaves a wet, sunken middle, so test the centre with a toothpick before removing it.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, molasses, butter, fig, currant, raisin. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipes