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Dessert

Soda Bread Cake

A soda bread cake made with flour, currants, raisins, sugar, buttermilk, candied peel, baking powder, butter, spice, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Soda Bread 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Rub the butter into the flour, then add the dry ingredients.

  3. Dissolve the baking powder in the tepid buttermilk.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the egg to the dry ingredients, then mix in the buttermilk.

  2. Beat the mixture well for five minutes.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for two 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 of the cake as its gluten and starch set in the oven.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when dissolved and heated, helping the cake rise.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the leavening to lift the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a soft texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking powder in the tepid buttermilk. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it is wet, so it should be mixed in and the batter baked promptly to keep the rise. Tepid liquid helps it dissolve evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, buttermilk, butter, 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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