Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Dough Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a large bowl, combine the dough, sugar, and butter.
Mix with your hands until soft.
Rise and bake
Let the mixture rise until light.
Once risen, fold in the raisins.
Bake immediately.
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.
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + raisintop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,630 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dough
- Forms the base structure of the cake, giving it body as it rises and sets.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and carries flavour.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help set the structure as it bakes.
The step that matters
Folding in the raisins after the rise. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles built up during rising. Stirring vigorously would deflate the mixture and leave a denser cake.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg. 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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