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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A rich cake made with butter, sugar, flour, raisins, currants, citron, molasses, eggs, spices, jelly, brandy, almonds, figs, and dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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 ↓

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

  1. Wash and dry the currants and raisins, then cut the citron finely.

  2. Line your cake pan with greased paper.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks to the butter mixture.

  3. Mix the baking soda into the molasses, then stir it into the batter.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites and sifted flour (with baking powder mixed in).

  5. Add the spices, jelly, and brandy, then mix well.

  6. Finally, fold in the fruit mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 + curranttop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten and folded in, lighten its crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, sweet flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites and flour. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg whites, which helps the cake rise. Stirring hard knocks that air out and can leave a dense, heavy cake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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