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Baking

Boiled Cake

A sweet cake made with raisins, butter, sugar, spices, baking soda, flour, and baked after boiling the mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a pot, combine raisins, butter, sugar, cold water, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil on the stove.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool until it's safe to add flour.

  4. Once cooled, stir in the flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot raisin mixture to help the cake rise.
Flour
Provides structure as the batter sets in the oven.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding flour. Flour added to a very hot mixture can start setting unevenly and mixing may be harder. Letting it cool first helps the batter combine smoothly and bake evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour. 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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