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Dessert

Sultana Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, lemon rind, flour, eggs, milk, baking powder, almonds, candied peel, and sultana raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Sultana Cake

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 ↓

Sultana 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, beating well.

  3. Grate in the lemon rind.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

  2. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk and unbeaten eggs, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Beat the mixture for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the raisins, shredded candied peel, and chopped almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a tin lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake for 1¼ hours.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air during beating.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the creamed butter and sugar. Beating the butter and sugar well, and adding the sugar gradually, traps air in the fat. These air bubbles expand in the oven and help give the cake lift and an even crumb.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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