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Dessert

Fruit Wedding Cake

A dense, spiced fruit cake made with flour, butter, molasses, eggs, citrus, dried fruit, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Wedding Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and dark brown sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the molasses and eggs, mixing well.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour and spices until combined.

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

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake slowly until done, about 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Let the cake cool completely before serving.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Orange + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy batter together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour and a darker colour to the crumb.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and moisture, softening slightly during the long bake.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until done. A low oven and long bake let the dense, fruit-heavy batter cook through evenly without the outside burning before the centre sets. Stopping early can leave the middle gummy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, molasses, egg, lemon, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, molasses, egg, lemon, orange. 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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