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Dessert

Dundee Cake

A buttery cake with currants, raisins, almonds, lemon peel, and spices baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Dundee 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. Whip the butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy.

  2. Add the eggs two at a time, beating for 5 minutes between each addition.

  3. Stir in the cream or milk.

  4. Mix the flour and baking powder in another bowl, then add to the butter mixture.

  5. Fold in the lemon peel, currants, sultana raisins, nutmeg, cloves, and vanilla.

  6. Mix until you have a firm batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow square cake pan.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped almonds over the top.

  3. Bake for 1 hour.

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

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

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  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
Creams with sugar to trap air and gives the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the cake crumb.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs two at a time with beating between additions. Eggs added too quickly can split the creamed butter and sugar mixture, because the emulsion cannot absorb them all at once. Beating between additions lets each addition blend in fully, keeping the batter smooth and the crumb even.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cream, flour, lemon, 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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