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Dessert

Tumbler Cake

A moist cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, molasses, milk, baking soda, spices, raisins, currants, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tumbler Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar, butter, molasses, and milk.

  3. Add the baking soda and spices, then stir in the raisins and currants.

  4. Gradually add flour until the batter reaches a typical cake consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the batter into a cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning and a moist crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter reaches a typical cake consistency. Adding too much flour at once or too much overall makes the cake dense and dry, while too little leaves it weak and wet. Adding it gradually lets you stop at the right consistency.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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

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