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Dessert

Fruit Cup Cakes

Fruit Cup Cakes are sweet cakes made with milk, flour, yeast, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fruit Cup Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Combine salt, sugar, nutmeg, butter, and scalded milk in a bowl.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool to lukewarm.

  3. Stir in sifted flour and dissolved yeast until well mixed to a cake batter consistency.

  4. Add beaten eggs and mix vigorously.

  5. Adjust with more flour if needed.

  6. Fold in raisins and currants.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the batter rise in patty pans until doubled in size.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

Finish

  1. Ice with your preferred flavor when cooled.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the cakes a light, airy crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, tender batter.
Raisins and currants
Add pockets of fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until doubled. Yeast needs time to produce gas and expand the batter. Underproofed batter bakes dense, while overproofed batter may collapse or turn coarse. Judging by doubled size helps the cakes rise evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, butter, milk, flour, egg, raisin. 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.

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