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Dessert

Beaumont Cake

A raisin cake with arrack, butter, powdered sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beaumont Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour and baking powder.

  5. Fold in the raisins and arrack.

Bake and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  3. Pour the mixture into a loaf pan and bake until golden.

  4. Once cooled, spread plain icing on top.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, they trap air and give the cake a light, airy crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter into a smooth, tender crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat for a tender texture and flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a fine, even texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam and produces a dense cake, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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