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Dessert

Almond Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, figs, raisins, baking powder, split almonds, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Almond 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

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs two at a time, whipping them in with a good egg whip.

  3. Drench the figs and raisins in the flour. Shake off any excess flour.

  4. Sift the remaining flour with the baking powder. Mix it in lightly but thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill a mold with the batter.

  2. Cover the top with split almonds.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and whipping them in helps bind and lighten the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as it sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Figs
Add moisture and chewy texture, and floured coating helps keep them suspended in the batter.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy texture, and floured coating helps keep them suspended in the batter.

The step that matters

Mix the flour and baking powder in lightly but thoroughly. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the cake, while undermixing leaves pockets of dry flour or uneven leavening. Gentle, complete folding keeps the crumb tender and even.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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