Name: Spiced Raisin Cake
Ingredients: three cups of sugar; one cup of milk; four cups of flour; three teaspoonfuls of sea foam; two teaspoonfuls of cinnamon; one cup of chopped raisins; six eggs; one large cake

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 ↓

Spiced Raisin Cake

one large cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Combine three cups of sugar, one cup of butter, six eggs, one cup of milk, four cups of flour, and three teaspoonfuls of sea foam.
Take one-third of this mixture and add two teaspoonfuls of cinnamon, one teaspoonful of cloves, a little nutmeg, and one cup of chopped raisins.

Bake and assemble

Bake in layers as in jelly cake, and put icing between each layer.
Half this quantity will make one large cake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

799Calories

28 gProtein

15 gFat

138 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Cake	not in our table	0

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

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the crumb a tender texture.
Milk: Adds moisture, keeping the batter loose and the crumb soft.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

“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.