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Dessert

A Sweet Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, eggs, sugar, flour, currants, candied peel, almonds, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Sweet 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. The book gives no cooking times either; 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 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the butter until creamy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and whites, beaten separately, and mix well.

  4. Incorporate the sugar, flour, currants, candied peel, and ground almonds.

  5. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, and brandy, and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered and paper-lined cake tin.

  2. Bake for about 2 hours, covering the top with paper if it browns too quickly.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift and yolks add richness and structure as the cake sets.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Gluten and starch form the cake's structure as it bakes and sets.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps trap air when creamed with the butter.
Currants
Dried fruit that adds chewy sweetness and moisture to the crumb.
Ground almonds
Add nutty flavour and moisture, and make the crumb a little richer.

The step that matters

Covering the top while baking. A long bake of about 2 hours can scorch the surface before the centre sets. Loosely covering the top with paper slows browning while heat reaches the middle, so the cake cooks through without a burnt crust.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, flour, orange, lemon, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, flour, orange, lemon, almond. 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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