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Dessert

Good Holiday Cake

A fruit cake made with flour, butter, lard, currants, raisins, candied peel, sugar, eggs, and cold milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Good Holiday Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the baking powder with the flour.

  2. Rub in the butter and lard.

  3. Prepare the currants (washed, picked and dried), the raisins (stoned and cut into small pieces, not chopped), and the peel (cut into neat slices).

Make the batter

  1. Add these with the sugar to the flour, and mix all the dry ingredients well together.

  2. Whisk the eggs.

  3. Stir the milk into the eggs.

  4. Moisten the cake mixture with this liquid, beating it well so all is thoroughly mixed.

  5. Line a cake tin with buttered paper.

  6. Put the batter into the cake tin.

Bake

  1. Bake for 2‑1/4 to 2‑3/4 hours in a good oven.

  2. To ascertain when it is done, plunge a clean knife into the middle; if it comes out clean, the cake is done.

  3. To prevent burning at the top, place a piece of clean paper over the cake while it is soaking or being thoroughly cooked in the middle.

  4. (Optional) Use a steamer lined with buttered paper at the bottom and sides as a cake tin.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

227Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
13 gCarbs

Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
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 + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour (in the method)
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten and starch set during baking.
Butter and lard (in the method)
Fat coats the flour, giving the cake a tender, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and hold its shape when baked.
Baking powder (in the method)
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the cake soft.
Sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a knife. The centre sets slowly while the top can over-brown. A clean knife test in the middle shows whether the inside is fully baked, so the cake is not pulled out raw or dried out by overbaking.

“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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