Name: Raisin Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; ½ cup butter; 3 eggs; ½ cup sweet milk; 1 heaping cup chopped raisins; 2 teaspoons baking powder; about 2 cups flour; nutmeg to taste

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 ↓

Raisin 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.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the well-beaten eggs and sweet milk, mixing well.
Stir in the flour and chopped raisins.
Add nutmeg to taste and mix until combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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: Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs: Provide structure and binding, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps browning, while creaming with butter traps air.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegthe original
Capersfits less well
Jalapenofits less well

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