Name: Lunch Cake
Ingredients: ½ pound moist sugar; 2 pounds flour; 1 tablespoon good thick yeast; ½ pint warm milk (not hot); ½ pound butter; 1½ pounds currants; a little candied peel; grated rind of 1 lemon; 1 teaspoon powdered allspice

Why it works: Lemon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,083 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lunch Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

Rub the sugar into the flour and make a hole in the center.
Mix the yeast with a little warm milk and a third of the flour; let it rise for about 45 minutes.
Melt the butter in a little more warm milk, ensuring it is not hot enough to scald the yeast.

Shape and bake

Add the currants, candied peel, lemon rind, and allspice to the mixture; combine well.
Butter a hoop or tin, pour the mixture in, and let it rise in a warm place.
Bake in a warm oven (350°F / 175°C) until done; check with a twig—if it comes out dry, the cake is ready.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,083 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,302 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Yeast: Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten sets during baking.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb.
Moist sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown while baking.
Currants: Provide fruitiness and chewy pockets throughout the cake.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast, forming the dough.

The step that matters

Keeping the milk warm, not hot. Yeast is a living organism; milk that is too hot kills it, so the dough will fail to rise.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk, butter, lemon, allspice):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, butter, lemon, 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.