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Dessert

Christmas Cakes

A small cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, nuts, and spices, baked at 350°F.

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 ↓

Christmas Cakes

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter substitute.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs, water, and sifted flour mixed with salt, baking powder, and cinnamon.

  3. Fold in the raisins and nuts dusted with flour.

Bake

  1. Drop by teaspoonfuls on a greased baking sheet about 1 inch apart.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes or until delicately browned.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

Butter or butter substitute
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown at the edges during baking.

The step that matters

Dropping the cookies onto the sheet. Spacing the drops about 1 inch apart leaves room for them to spread in the oven. Crowding them can make them fuse and bake unevenly.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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