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Dessert

Directions for Making Fruit Cakes

A sweet cake made with dried fruit, almonds, spices, and butter, baked slowly with a moist pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Directions for Making Fruit Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the fruit a day in advance and soak it in wine or grape juice.

  2. Blanch and grind the almonds, then mix with rosewater.

  3. Measure spices and mix with cordial and jelly; do not stir after adding jelly.

  4. Brown the flour in the oven, then cool and measure it.

  5. Line the pans with two layers of heavy brown paper, brushing with melted butter.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter with half the sugar, then beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until light.

  2. Combine the butter mixture with the egg yolks, then add the cordial, jelly, and spices.

  3. Alternately add the beaten egg whites and half of the flour, then mix in the melted chocolate.

  4. Sift flour over the fruit, add to the batter and repeat until all fruit is incorporated.

  5. Fold in the nuts.

Bake

  1. Fill the pans with the batter and smooth the top; decorate with nuts and fruit.

  2. Place the pans on a griddle in the oven, with a small pan of hot water underneath for moisture.

  3. Set the oven to low heat and bake for 2.5 to 4 hours, depending on the size of the cake, without opening the oven for the first hour.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites add richness and structure, and whipped whites lighten the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the creamed batter.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Blanched and ground almonds
Add body, moisture and nutty flavor to the batter.
Assorted dried fruit
Provides sweetness, chewy texture and bulk throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake low and do not open the oven for the first hour. A long, gentle bake sets the large, dense batter evenly without burning the outside. Opening the oven early lets heat escape and can make the cake sink or bake unevenly.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, almond, flour, butter, sugar, egg, chocolate):

  1. Hazelnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, almond, flour, butter, sugar, egg, chocolate. 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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