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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, sweet cream, spices, preserved fruits, and raisins, cooked to a soft ball stage and molded into an oblong shape.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the fondant

  1. Dissolve the cream of tartar in a little water.

  2. In a pot, combine sugar and sweet cream, then bring to a boil.

  3. Add the dissolved cream of tartar after reaching boiling point.

  4. Cook until it reaches a soft ball stage, stirring continually.

  5. Pour the mixture onto a slab and let it cool.

Shape and set

  1. Once cool, cream the mixture as you would fondant.

  2. Knead the creamed mixture and incorporate spices and fruits as desired.

  3. Mold the mixture into an oblong cake pan and let it sit for several hours.

  4. Turn out the cake and cut into slices or pieces, then wrap in wax paper.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet body of the cake and sets into a firm, fondant-like mass as it cools.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the creamed mixture a smooth, tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the boiling sugar syrup, helping prevent crystallisation for a smooth fondant.
Preserved fruits
Add sweetness, chew and fruity flavour kneaded through the fondant.

The step that matters

Cook to the soft ball stage while stirring. Sugar syrup must reach the correct concentration to set into a creamy fondant. Undercooking leaves it soft and runny, while overcooking makes it hard and grainy. Continual stirring prevents sugar crystals from forming unevenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, raisin):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, 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.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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