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Dessert

Raised Cake

A sweet raisin cake made from a bread sponge, sugar, butter, raisins, egg, and spice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Raised Cake

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Raised 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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the bread sponge, sugar, butter, chopped raisins, egg, and spice in a bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture until it is as stiff as possible.

  3. Let the mixture rise until light.

Bake

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

  2. Bake the cake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on your oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread sponge
Provides fermentation and a light, airy crumb as the batter rises.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown during baking.
Chopped raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise until light. The bread sponge needs time to ferment and trap gas, which gives the cake its lift. Under-rising leaves a dense crumb, so wait until the batter visibly lightens before baking.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, 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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