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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, cream, treacle, sugar, raisins, ginger, soda, and vinegar, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 Cake

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.

Prepare

  1. Warm the butter until melted, but do not let it oil.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, ginger, and chopped raisins.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly, then stir in the melted butter, cream, treacle, and whisked eggs.

  2. Beat the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Dissolve the soda in the vinegar and add it to the mixture, ensuring it is well incorporated.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold or tin.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 2½ hours.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing moistness and tenderness to the crumb.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the soda in the vinegar and folding it in. Soda and vinegar react quickly to release gas, so the mixture should be combined thoroughly and baked promptly to get the most lift from the leavening.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, sugar, egg, raisin, vinegar. 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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