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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A cake made with raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, orange peel, cherries, figs, dates, butter, brown sugar, eggs, spices, baking soda, cider, molasses, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut all fruit finely and flour it.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter, brown sugar, and egg yolks together.

  2. Add the fruit, spices, and beaten egg whites last.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) in pans lined with parchment paper for 1.5 to 2 hours.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

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

  3. Orange + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Orange + datestop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

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

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, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and moisture, and it helps the cake brown.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while beaten whites add lightness and help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic boiled cider and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewy texture and sweetness to the dense fruit mixture.
Sifted flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the fruit, spices, and beaten egg whites last. Folding gently preserves the air whipped into the egg whites, which helps the cake rise. Overmixing deflates the batter and makes the crumb dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, orange, fig, dates, butter, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, orange, fig, dates, butter, sugar. 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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