Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Mich Seed 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the butter until creamy.
Gradually add the brown sugar and mix well.
Make the batter
Incorporate the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Gradually mix in the flour.
Fold in the washed and dried currants and white wine.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a buttered tin and bake until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,083 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together276 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Adds fat and richness, and helps create a tender crumb when beaten until creamy.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper caramel flavour.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter, add richness, and help set the structure as the cake bakes.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together.
- Currants
- Add sweet, chewy bursts of dried-fruit flavour throughout the cake.
- White wine
- Adds moisture and a light, fruity aroma to the batter.
The step that matters
Incorporate the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually, beating well after each, lets the fat and liquid emulsify into a smooth batter. Adding them too quickly can cause curdling or separation, which leads to a coarser, denser cake.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, white wine):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, white wine. 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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