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Dessert

Perth Cake

A Scottish cake made with flour, brown sugar, currants, butter, milk, baking soda, lemon essence, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Perth 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, currants, nutmeg, and cinnamon or ginger.

  2. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the cold milk.

  4. Add the dissolved baking soda and lemon essence to the flour mixture. Pour in the milk and mix well until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered tin.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten network sets in the oven.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk and lemon essence to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper, molasses-like flavour to the cake.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the batter and dissolves the sugar for moisture.
Currants
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved baking soda to the flour mixture. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the lemon essence here, to release gas. Mixing it in thoroughly and then baking promptly keeps the rise even and steady rather than lost before the cake sets.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, butter, milk, lemon. 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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