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Dessert

Connecticut Election Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake with raisins, citron, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Connecticut Election Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix all the flour, half of the sugar, and butter together.

  2. Add the yeast and gradually mix in warm milk until the consistency is like biscuit dough.

  3. Cover and let it rise overnight.

Finish and bake

  1. In the morning, add the remaining butter, sugar, and eggs, then let it rise again.

  2. Fold in the fruit, spices, and baking soda.

  3. Pour the batter into tins and bake.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the risen crumb together.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, leavening the dough and giving it a light texture.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping bind the batter and set the crumb in the oven.
Butter and lard
Add fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning in the oven.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise overnight. Yeast needs enough time to leaven the dough fully; under-proofing leaves a dense crumb, while the second rise after adding the eggs and sugar lets the batter lighten again before baking.

“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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