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Baking

Fruit Cake

A dense cake made with raisins, sherry, citron, brandy, dates, cherries, plum jelly, butter, flour, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the sherry, brandy, and plum jelly.

  5. In another bowl, combine the browned flour, baking powder, and all the fruits.

  6. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined.

  7. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Sherry + plumtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + plumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, creamed texture.
Plum jelly
Adds sweetness, moisture and fruit flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients. Mixing only until just combined keeps the batter from overdeveloping gluten, which would make the cake tough. Adding the dry mixture gradually helps it blend evenly into the batter without deflating the air trapped by creaming.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sherry, brandy, butter, plum, flour, egg. 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

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