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Dessert

Birthday Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, raisins, currants, brandy, and spices, topped with white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Birthday Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Mix in the milk, fruit, and brandy.

  4. Sift the flour with baking powder, salt, and nutmeg, then add to the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour into a well-greased and papered cake tin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for two hours.

  3. Turn out and, when cool, cover with white frosting.

  4. Decorate with tiny shamrocks and candles if desired.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for lift and softness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, tender batter.

The step that matters

Baking for two hours at moderate heat. A long, moderate bake lets the dense, fruit-filled batter set through the centre without the outside browning or drying too early. Checking doneness before turning out prevents a sunken or gummy middle.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, raisin, brandy. 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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