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Dessert

Dark Fruit Cake

A moist fruit cake made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, raisins, currants, citron, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Dark 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. In a large bowl, mix molasses, brown sugar, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add mixed spices, grated nutmeg, eggs, and milk. Stir until smooth.

  3. Fold in raisins, currants, citron, flour, and baking soda.

  4. Stir in the melted chocolate until evenly distributed.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for one hour or 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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet flavor to the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and baking soda gently. Folding rather than vigorously stirring keeps gluten development low, so the dense fruit cake stays tender instead of tough.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, nutmeg, egg, milk, 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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