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Dessert

Rich Plum Cake

A dense, buttery cake with currants, sweetmeats, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rich Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Mix the melted butter with sugar until light.

  3. Add allspice and cinnamon.

  4. Stir for 15 minutes.

  5. Incorporate the yolks of the eggs, two or three at a time.

  6. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  7. Fold the beaten whites into the batter gradually.

  8. Mix in orange peel, lemon peel, citron, currants, and almonds.

  9. Add sifted flour.

  10. Add brandy.

  11. Mix well.

Bake

  1. Bake in a tin hoop at 400°F (200°C) for three hours.

  2. Place twelve sheets of paper underneath and four or five on top to prevent burning.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its crumb.
Fresh butter
Provides richness and a tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Creaming with butter adds sweetness and traps air for a light batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once it sets in the oven.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Sweetmeats
Add concentrated sweetness and soft fruity texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the batter. Whites hold air only when stiff and gentle folding keeps that air in. Overmixing deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake after the long bake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, brandy, almond, egg, allspice):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, brandy, almond, egg, allspice. 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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