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 ↓
Composition 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Mix the wine and nutmeg into the flour and baking powder.
Combine and bake
Combine all ingredients gently, then fold in the beaten egg whites.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 1 hour.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter to help create a light texture and add sweetness.
- Eggs
- Beaten whites add air and lift, while the yolks help set the structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become lighter.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to the batter, helping it stay soft after baking.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that help the cake rise. Stirring them in roughly deflates the foam, leaving a denser, flatter cake, so the batter should be folded slowly and gently.
Swap the raisin
The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, wine, egg, nutmeg):
- Vanillafits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, wine, egg, nutmeg. 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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