Skip to main content
Dessert

Scotch Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, flour, butter, eggs, raisins, citron, spices, and brandy, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Scotch 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 ↓

Scotch 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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour, baking powder, raisins, citron, grated nutmeg, ground mace, and brandy until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 1½ hours, or longer if needed, until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake bakes and sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise lightly.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness distributed through the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. A dense, fruit-filled batter needs enough time for the center to set fully. Pulling it early leaves a gummy interior, while the toothpick test confirms the center has cooked through.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes