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Dessert

English Plum Cake

A yeast-based cake with currants, raisins, citron, cloves, and cinnamon, baked at 300°F and wrapped in a damp cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

English Plum 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour and sugar.

  2. Melt the butter and pour in the milk, then add to the flour mixture.

  3. Add the yeast and mix to form a soft sponge. Let it rise overnight.

  4. In the morning, add the currants, raisins, citron, cloves, and cinnamon.

  5. Knead the mixture until stiff, then let it rise until light.

Bake and finish

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C) and bake until done.

  2. Once baked, wrap the cake in a damp cloth and keep a damp napkin under it.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 it is mixed and risen.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the soft sponge rise and lighten the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and adds richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form the soft dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps feed the yeast during rising.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce gas and stretch the gluten network. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse in the oven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, flour, raisin, clove, cinnamon. 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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