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Dessert

One Pound Fruit-cake

A pound fruit cake made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, mace, cinnamon, raisins, citron, and almonds.

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 ↓

One Pound Fruit-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, mace, and cinnamon.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing until smooth.

  5. Stir in the brandy, raisins, citron, and almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat that coats the flour and creams with the sugar.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with the butter for lightness.
Eggs
Bind the batter, add structure as they set, and contribute moisture and richness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor, and a bit of richness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour mixture. Adding flour in portions and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter emulsified and limits gluten development, which helps prevent a dense, tough cake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, cinnamon, 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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