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Rich Christmas Cake

A rich fruit cake made with flour, sugar, eggs, dried fruit, candied peel and almonds, finished with almond and sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rich Christmas Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, butter, and syrup until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. In another bowl, mix the flour, mixed spice, candied peel, currants, sultanas, and almonds.

  5. Combine the dry ingredients with the creamed mixture.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk and add it to the batter. Mix everything well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour into a greased and lined cake tin.

  2. Bake for 2 to 3 hours until a skewer comes out clean.

  3. Level the top of the cake.

  4. Brush the top with egg white.

  5. Apply almond icing.

  6. Apply sugar icing.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the cake its structure.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with the fat.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to help the cake rise.
Lyle's golden syrup
Adds moisture, sweetness and a soft, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow until a skewer comes out clean. A large, dense fruit cake can look set on top while the centre is still wet. Baking at a low temperature for the full time lets heat reach the middle without the outside burning, so test the centre with a skewer before removing it.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, almond, egg, syrup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, almond, egg, syrup. 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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