Skip to main content
Dessert

Election Cake

A yeast-based cake with sweet milk, lard, sugar, eggs, butter, mace, cinnamon, raisins, and currants, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Election 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.

Make the sponge

  1. In the evening, mix yeast, sweet milk, lard, sugar, egg, and enough flour to form a stiff batter. Cover and let it sit overnight.

Mix and rise

  1. In the morning, add 2 cups of sugar, 2 eggs, butter, mace, cinnamon, and enough flour to achieve a stiff consistency.

  2. Fold in raisins and currants.

  3. Let the batter rise in the pans for at least 1 hour.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  2. Ice the cakes once they are baked.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the crumb as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and moist.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch structure that holds the cake together.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise in the pans. The yeast needs enough time to raise the stiff batter before baking. Underproofed batter bakes dense, while the rise sets the final light texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More election cake recipes

Hartford 10Connecticut 6 See all 19 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes