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 ↓
White Fruit Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine sweet milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Make the batter
Add the eggs to the butter mixture, mixing well.
Gradually add the milk mixture to the creamed butter and sugar.
Sift the flour and fold it into the batter.
Stir in the raisins and citron.
Bake
Pour the batter into a cake mold.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness to the batter as they set during baking.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, helping the baking soda react and contributing to a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air that helps the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
The step that matters
Gradually add the milk mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Adding the liquid slowly helps the emulsion stay smooth and keeps the batter from curdling, which protects the air trapped by creaming. Overmixing after the flour goes in can toughen the cake.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, cream, butter, sugar, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinthe original
- Coconutfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, butter, sugar, 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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