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 ↓
Composition Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the beaten eggs, nutmeg, and half of the flour.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and mix it with the brandy.
Stir the milk mixture into the batter along with the remaining flour.
Fold in the raisins just before pouring the batter into the pans.
Bake
Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until it separates easily from the pans.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb once baked.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity of the brandy or wine to help the cake rise.
- Raisins
- Add pockets of chewy sweetness distributed through the cake.
The step that matters
Fold in the raisins just before pouring the batter into the pans. Folding gently keeps the batter's trapped air intact, so the cake rises evenly. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour and toughens the crumb, and raisins added too early can sink to the bottom.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg, brandy, raisin):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Clovefits less well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg, brandy, 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.
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