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Dessert

Yule Cake

A moist, spiced cake made with raisins, orange peel, and graham flour, finished with chocolate icing and almonds.

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

Yule 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl.

  2. Add the grated nutmeg, chopped raisins, and grated orange peel; mix well.

  3. Stir in the sour milk.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add the graham flour, mixing until combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the cake cool completely before icing with chocolate.

  3. Decorate with blanched almonds and white icing using a fluting tube.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Graham flour
Provides the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add to the mixture. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in evenly so it reacts with the acid in the sour milk and lifts the batter uniformly; clumps can leave pockets of bitterness and uneven rising.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, nutmeg, raisin, milk, flour, chocolate. 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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