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Dessert

Elizabeth’s Raised Cake

A raised cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, and citron, baked after a sponge is prepared overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 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 ↓

Elizabeth’s Raised Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Prepare the sponge: combine 5-5¼ cups flour, ½ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons yeast (or ½ cake compressed yeast) and 1½ cups milk.

  2. Make the sponge at night with soft yeast or early in the morning with compressed yeast.

Mix and rise

  1. When light, add 1½ cups sugar, 1 cup butter, 2 eggs, 1 cup raisins, and ⅓ cup citron to the sponge; cream the butter with the sugar, beat the eggs, and mix all thoroughly.

  2. Pour the batter into tins. When partly risen, stick the fruit all over the top; let rise about 1½ hours, or until bubbles may be seen.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven. The cake is excellent without fruit.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

895Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
136 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
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
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
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 Evora Bucknum Perkins. 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + milktop 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
Builds the structure that holds the bubbles formed during rising.
Yeast
Produces gas that leavens the sponge and makes the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and enriches the flavour.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise before baking. The fruit is added once the batter is partly risen, and the second rise must reach visible bubbles. Yeast gas expands the crumb, so underproofing gives a dense cake and overproofing can collapse it in the oven.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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