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Dessert

English Currant Cake

A yeasted cake made with flour, butter, lard, sugar, currants, candied lemon peel, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

English Currant 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).

  2. Chop the candied lemon peel.

  3. Wash the currants.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter and sugar into the flour until it resembles fine meal.

  2. Add the chopped lemon peel and currants to the dry mixture.

  3. Scald the milk.

  4. Mix the scalded milk into a stiff batter like biscuit dough.

  5. Dissolve the yeast cake in the mixture and work it in well.

Rise and bake

  1. Place the batter in greased pans shaped like buns and let it rise overnight.

  2. Bake in the preheated slow oven until golden.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and short.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.
Yeast cake
Produces gas that makes the dough rise overnight.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a workable dough.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise overnight. The yeast needs enough time to produce gas and expand the dough. Rising too briefly leaves the buns dense, while the structure needs time to develop before baking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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