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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A rich cake made with eggs, butter, flour, sugar, raisins, currants, dates, figs, nuts, citrus, spices, molasses, whiskey, and cherry butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and cherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 21 recipes mention both. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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. Soak the spices in whiskey for at least 2 hours.

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

  3. Prepare four square brick pans, ideally not larger than 4 pounds each.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl until well mixed.

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

  3. Add the beaten eggs, sweet cream, whiskey, spices, cherry butter, and molasses to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing well.

  5. Dredge the chopped fruit in a little flour and fold it into the batter a few handfuls at a time.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 2 hours, checking for doneness.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Dates + cherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + cherrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hydroxybutan-2-one (cheesy, buttery).

  4. Currant + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a light crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together.
Currants
Add moisture, chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Black molasses
Adds depth, moisture and a dark caramel-like sweetness.

The step that matters

Folding in the chopped fruit. Fruit is heavy and sinks to the bottom of the batter. Dredging it lightly in flour helps it cling and distribute evenly, and adding it a few handfuls at a time keeps the batter from being overworked or deflated.

Flavor stand-ins for the dates

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Appleabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Raspberryabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, flour, raisin, currant, fig. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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