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Dessert

Plum Cake

A dense, spiced fruit cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, raisins, currants, almonds, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Plum 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. Prepare a very large pan with two layers of paper at the bottom.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, spices, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet cream.

  5. Fold in the egg whites beaten stiff.

  6. Add the citron, almonds, and raisins/currants mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for four hours, ensuring it is well done.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten stiff and folded in, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Dissolved in milk and combined with the cream of tartar, it helps the cake rise.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps tenderise the crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and binding to the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites beaten stiff. Overmixing deflates the whipped whites, losing the air that gives the cake its lift. Fold gently until just combined so the batter stays light.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, cream, milk, almond. 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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