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Dessert

Fruit Cake

Fruit Cake is a sweet baked dessert containing butter, sugar, molasses, sweet milk, flour, spices, brandy, candied citron, citrus peels, raisins, currants, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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.

Prepare

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

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

  3. Add the molasses and sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the flour, grated nutmeg, and brandy.

  5. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  6. Add the baking powder, raisins, currants, candied citron, lemon peel, orange peel, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for two hours, checking for doneness.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat coating the flour.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the batter rise in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with mild acidity.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness in pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking for two hours at a low temperature. Low, slow heat lets the centre set without the outside over-browning or drying. Checking for doneness matters because the dense, fruit-heavy batter can stay wet in the middle even when the crust looks finished.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, flour, nutmeg, brandy. 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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