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Cetia Thaxter Cake

A spiced raisin cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, cream of tartar, cinnamon and cloves, given by Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Landmarks Club · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Cetia Thaxter Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream two cups sugar and half cup butter well.

  2. Add two well beaten eggs.

  3. Add one cup milk with one teaspoon soda.

  4. Add two and a half cups of flour into which two teaspoons of cream tartar have been sifted.

  5. Sprinkle two cups seeded raisins with one-half cup of the flour from the above measure.

  6. Add the floured raisins, one teaspoon each cinnamon and cloves.

Bake

  1. Bake about one hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

959Calories
29 gProtein
32 gFat
140 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6

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

By Landmarks Club. 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Tea + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, fine crumb when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starches set during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter reach a smooth, pourable consistency.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dusting the raisins with flour. Coating the raisins with a little of the measured flour helps them stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom while it bakes.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, tea, cream, cinnamon. 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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