Skip to main content
Dessert

Composition Cake

A fruit cake made with sugar, butter, flour, currants, sultanas, peel, cream of tartar, and baking soda, topped with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Composition Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Mix in the flour, currants, sultanas, peel, cream of tartar, and baking soda until well combined.

Bake

  1. Prepare 1 or 2 square cake tins by lining them with white stiff paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared tins.

  3. Sprinkle chopped almonds on top.

  4. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) for two hours or more, depending on the size of the cake.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and creams with butter to help hold air for lightness.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Cream of tartar
Acidic agent that works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Alkaline agent that reacts with acid to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven. A low, steady oven heat lets this large, dense, fruit-packed batter cook through evenly before the outside browns or dries. Larger cakes need the full time, so test for doneness rather than relying on the clock alone.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, cream, almond. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipes