Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense, spiced cake with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

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. 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the brandy, molasses, citron, raisins, and currants, ensuring the fruit is well floured.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake slowly until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan, about 2-3 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a light base and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once it is heated and set.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the batter.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the finished cake.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. A low oven heats the dense, fruit-heavy batter gently so the center cooks through without the outside burning. Pulling away from the sides signals the structure has set.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes