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Dessert

Dough Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, raisins, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and raised bread dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dough 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.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the dough and butter thoroughly by hand.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs into the mixture.

  4. Add the chopped raisins last.

  5. Do not let the mixture rise; place it in a greased bread pan immediately.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Raised bread dough
Provides the yeasty, bread-like base and body of the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning during baking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set.
Chopped raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture rise before baking. The dough is already raised, so letting the mixture rise again over-proofs it. Extra gas and collapse can leave a dense, uneven crumb once baked.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, bread, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, bread, 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.

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