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Dessert

Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, raisins, currants, citron, nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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

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. The book gives no cooking times; 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 300°F (150°C).

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

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

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, citron, and spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that activates the baking soda and helps give a tender crumb.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Adding flour in alternation with milk and not all at once helps keep the batter smooth and prevents overmixing, which would make the cake tough. Mix only until combined.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk, cream, raisin. 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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