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Dessert

Cheap Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with brown sugar, butter, molasses, preserves, buttermilk, coffee, eggs, nutmeg, baking soda, raisins, currants, candied fruit, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Cheap Fruit Cake

Why it works: Sugar and buttermilk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,973 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cheap Fruit 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Stir in the molasses, jelly or preserves, buttermilk, coffee, and eggs.

  4. Add the grated nutmeg and the dissolved baking soda.

  5. Incorporate the chopped raisins, currants, and candied fruits.

  6. Mix the flour into the batter, ensuring the fruit is well coated.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered pans.

  2. Bake for 1½ 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 and a tender crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Molasses
Adds deep flavour, dark colour and extra moisture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to lift the batter.

The step that matters

Coating the fruit in the flour. Tossing the raisins, currants and candied peel in flour before folding them in helps keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter. Mix the flour in gently so the batter does not become tough.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, molasses, buttermilk, coffee, egg, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, buttermilk, coffee, egg, nutmeg. 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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