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Dessert

Rich Fruit Cake

A dense cake with raisins, currants, candied fruits, nuts, and spices, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Rich 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream butter until soft.

  2. Add sugar and cream again.

  3. Add egg yolks and beat for 5 minutes.

  4. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg three times.

  5. Add sifted mixture alternately with sour milk, molasses, and fruit juice to the creamed mixture. Beat well.

  6. Fold in chopped and floured fruit, adding whole almonds, raisins, and currants.

  7. Fold in well-beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Grease and flour a loaf pan or a large tube cake pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 ½ hours if using a large cake pan.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Almond + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter and well-beaten whites lighten it and add structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a hint of bitterness.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Well-beaten whites hold air that lightens the heavy fruit batter. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the cake rises instead of turning dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, raisin, pineapple, almond, pecans, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, raisin, pineapple, almond, pecans, orange. 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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White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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