Name: To Make a Rich Plum Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound fresh butter; 1 pound sugar; 1½ pounds flour; 2 pounds currants; 1 pound raisins; ⅓ cup brandy; 10 eggs; ¼ ounce allspice; ¼ ounce cinnamon

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 ↓

To Make a Rich Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Melt the butter by stirring until creamy.
Add sifted sugar and stir until light, then mix in allspice and cinnamon.
Beat the yolks of the eggs for 15 minutes and incorporate them into the mixture.
Beat the egg whites until frothy and gradually fold them into the batter.
Add finely chopped orange peel, currants, stoned raisins, and brandy.
Slowly dredge in the flour and mix well.
Pour the batter into a straight-sided tin dish.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 3 hours, placing paper under the cake to prevent burning.
Cover the top if it browns too quickly.
Once baked, place the cake on a thin cloth on a sieve or basket lid to allow steam to escape.

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.

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).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,475 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

Swap the allspice

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Allspicethe original
Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, currant, raisin, brandy, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.