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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A quick, moist cake made with flour, butter, cream, treacle, brown sugar, raisins, ginger, baking soda, and vinegar.

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, ginger, and chopped raisins.

  2. Stir in the melted butter, cream, treacle, and whisked eggs.

  3. Mix the baking soda with the dry ingredients, ensuring no lumps remain.

  4. Add the vinegar to the mixture and stir until combined.

Bake

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

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for 1.5 to 2.5 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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten sets during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar and treacle to release gas that lightens the cake.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture in the finished crumb.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, with a deep molasses flavour.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and browned.

The step that matters

Mixing the baking soda into the dry ingredients. Baking soda must be evenly distributed before liquids are added; lumps leave pockets of bitter residue and uneven rising. It then reacts with the acidic vinegar and treacle to lift the batter.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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