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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, currants, ginger, treacle, and butter, baked for 1¾–2¼ hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Christmas Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soda cake

  1. Warm the butter until it melts, but do not allow it to oil.

  2. Put the flour into a basin.

  3. Add the sugar, ginger, and raisins to the flour; stone and cut raisins into small pieces.

  4. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly.

  5. Stir in the melted butter, cream, treacle, and well-whisked eggs.

  6. Beat the mixture for a few minutes.

  7. Dissolve the soda in the vinegar.

  8. Add the soda-vinegar mixture to the dough and mix well.

  9. Put the dough into a buttered mould or tin.

  10. Place the tin in a moderate oven immediately and bake for 1¾–2¼ hours.

Make the yeast cake

  1. Rub the butter lightly into the flour.

  2. Add all the dry ingredients and mix well.

  3. Warm the milk, but not hot.

  4. Stir in the yeast.

  5. With the milk-yeast mixture, make the dough into a light dough.

  6. Knead the dough well.

  7. Line the cake tins with strips of buttered paper, about 6 inches higher than the top of the tin.

  8. Put the dough into the tins.

  9. Let the dough rise in a warm place for more than an hour.

  10. Bake the cakes in a well-heated oven; if divided into two, bake for 1½–2 hours.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

889Calories
28 gProtein
31 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Cakenot 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.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its main body.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with vinegar to release gas that lifts and aerates the batter.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep colour to the cake.

The step that matters

Place the tin in a moderate oven immediately. Soda and vinegar release gas as soon as they meet, so the batter should go into the oven right away before that lift fades and the cake turns out flat and dense.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, milk, flour, butter, cream, sugar, egg. 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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