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Dessert

English Gems

A sweet cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, coffee, molasses, flour, spices, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

English Gems

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream one cup butter with two cups brown sugar.

  2. Add four beaten eggs, one teaspoon soda dissolved in one large cup of strong coffee, one cup molasses, four cups sifted flour, one-half teaspoon each of nutmeg, allspice, cloves and mace, two teaspoonfuls cream of tartar sifted with one-half cup flour, one cup raisins, one-half cup each currants and chopped citron.

  3. Mix well and fill buttered gem pans one-half full and bake.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with butter.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

879Calories
21 gProtein
25 gFat
144 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 12 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Coffeenot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat coats the flour and tenderizes the crumb while adding richness.
Eggs
Proteins set during baking, giving the gems structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the batter.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the gems their body.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic coffee and cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acid that reacts with the soda to help the gems rise.

The step that matters

Fill the pans one-half full. The batter rises as the leavening gases expand in the oven. Filling the pans only halfway leaves room for this rise, so the gems bake evenly without overflowing.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, coffee, molasses, flour, nutmeg, cream, 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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