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Dessert

Fruit Cake

Fruit cake is a sweet baked loaf with raisins, citron, spices, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

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

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk and add it to the mixture.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Gradually add the flour, spices, raisins, and citron, mixing well.

  5. If desired, stir in the brandy.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into long, deep pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor to the cake.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda for rising.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the buttermilk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it fully in the buttermilk before adding it spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises uniformly rather than developing dense or bitter patches.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, buttermilk, egg, flour, cinnamon. 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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