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Dessert

Rich Fruit Cake

A buttery, spiced fruit cake made with currants, raisins, dates, almonds, citron, grape juice, and coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rich Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the butter thoroughly.

  2. Slowly add the sifted sugar and beat until very light.

  3. Add one-quarter of the flour and spices.

  4. Add the well-beaten yolks of the eggs, then the beaten whites; beat until very light.

  5. Alternately add the fruit juice and coffee with the remaining flour; beat well.

  6. Add the fruit, one-third at a time.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while beaten whites add lift and lightness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel note, and helps the batter cream to a light texture.
Currants
Dried fruit adding sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the finished cake.
Raisins
Dried fruit adding sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Adding the fruit in portions. Heavy fruit can sink to the bottom if dumped in at once. Adding it one-third at a time, into a well-aerated batter, helps distribute it evenly through the cake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. 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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