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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, spices, raisins, currants, citron, molasses, brandy, and sherry.

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 ↓

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and flour alternately to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and molasses.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in a tablespoon of milk and add it to the batter.

  6. Toss the raisins and currants in ½ cup of flour, then mix them into the batter.

  7. Add the brandy and sherry or claret to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Layer the batter and sliced citron in a baking pan.

  2. Bake for 2 to 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to build a tender, rich crumb and carry flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift as the cake sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the cake rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, color and moisture, and helps the baking soda react.

The step that matters

Bake for 2 to 3 hours. A dense, fruit-heavy batter cooks slowly at low heat. Too high a temperature or too short a bake can leave the center raw while the outside over-browns.

Swap the clove

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

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

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