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Dessert

A Rich Plum Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, flour, currants, candied peel, almonds, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Rich Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat butter until creamy.

  3. Gradually add powdered sugar, mixing until light.

  4. Stir in ground spices.

  5. After 15 minutes, add eggs two or three at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  6. Incorporate candied peel and currants.

  7. Mix in chopped almonds.

  8. Add flour and brandy, mixing until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into a prepared tin hoop lined with parchment paper and bake for 3 hours.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air that helps the cake rise and gives a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, aerated texture when creamed with butter.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs. Adding eggs too quickly can cause the batter to curdle or separate, because the emulsion breaks. Adding them two or three at a time and mixing well after each addition keeps the batter smooth and stable.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, almond, allspice, cinnamon, 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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