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Dessert

Dark Fruit Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, flour, sour milk, eggs, and a mixture of raisins, currants, figs, citron, lemons, currant jelly, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Dark Fruit 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.

Prepare

  1. Wash the fruit several days in advance and dry carefully.

  2. Flour the fruit just before using.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the molasses, sour milk, and eggs, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, alternating with the fruit.

  5. Stir in the grated lemons, currant jelly, brandy, and spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 ½ 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Raisins
Add moisture, sweetness, and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour mixture, alternating with the fruit. Adding flour in portions keeps the batter evenly mixed and prevents overmixing, which would develop gluten and make the cake tough. Flouring the fruit helps it stay suspended rather than sinking to the bottom.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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