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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with flour, brown sugar, butter, raisins, currants, citron, almonds, spices, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until smooth.

  2. Beat the egg whites separately.

  3. Beat the egg yolks separately.

  4. Add the beaten egg whites and yolks to the creamed mixture.

  5. Stir in the spices.

  6. Gradually add the flour just before pouring into the pan.

  7. Fold in the raisins, currants, citron, and almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake slowly.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and yolks are beaten separately and folded in, adding lift and structure to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Creamed with the butter, it adds sweetness and moisture and helps browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour just before pouring into the pan. Flour develops gluten once it is mixed with liquid and stirred, so adding it late and gently keeps the cake tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, raisin, almond, 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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