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Dessert

The Pkeident's Christmas Cake

A rich fruit cake of butter, sugar, eggs, flour, dried and crystallized fruit, nuts and spices, baked or steamed in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

The Pkeident's Christmas Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the almonds in rose water overnight and the fruit in grape juice for the same time.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together thoroughly.

Make the batter

  1. Add the well-beaten yolks of the eggs, then mix in the spices, grape jelly, and melted chocolate.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites and part of the flour.

  3. Roll the soaked fruit in the remaining flour and mix it into the batter in small quantities.

  4. Add the nuts last.

Bake or steam

  1. Bake or steam the cake for 4 to 6 hours in small or large molds.

  2. If steamed, dry it off in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Grape + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter for structure and adds sweetness and browning.
Browned and sifted flour
Provides the main structure that holds the heavy fruit and nuts together.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while beaten whites add lightness and help it rise.
Seeded raisins
Add moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.
Blanched almonds
Add richness, texture and a nutty flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Rolling the soaked fruit in flour before mixing. Flour coats the wet, sticky fruit so it stays suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, chocolate, pineapple. 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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