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 ↓
Black or Wedding 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
Make the batter
Beat the egg whites.
Beat the egg yolks.
Mix the yolks into the creamed butter and sugar.
Add the milk and mix well.
Sift the baking powder with the flour.
Gradually stir the flour mixture into the mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Add the dredged currants and raisins.
Bake
Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.
Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, adding tenderness and richness to the crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and fat; whites, folded in, add lift and an airy texture.
- Currants
- Add fruitiness and chewy texture; dredging them in flour helps keep them suspended.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness, chewiness and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the batter, which leads to a dense, heavy cake with less rise.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, 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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