Skip to main content
Dessert

A Small Fruit Cake

A small fruit cake made with sugar, butter, molasses, eggs, dried fruit, nuts, spices, flour, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

A Small Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the molasses and dissolved baking soda, mixing well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Fold in the citron, raisins, currants, almonds, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and flour.

  5. Flavor with lemon essence.

  6. Finally, gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for one 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  2. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Butter + almondtop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness and carries the spice flavours.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep colour and flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to release gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gently folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air that helps the cake rise. Stirring them vigorously deflates that air, leaving a denser cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, molasses, egg, raisin, almond, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, egg, raisin, almond, nutmeg. 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 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipes