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Dessert

Election Cake

A yeast-raised cake with raisins, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Election Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of yeast, and 2 cups of milk.

  2. Add enough flour to form a stiff dough and let it rise overnight.

Finish and bake

  1. In the morning, add 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of butter, 3 eggs, and 2 cups of raisins.

  2. Mix until the dough is not quite as stiff as bread.

  3. Transfer the mixture into pans, let it rise, and then bake.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Yeast
Produces gas that makes the stiff dough rise overnight and again in the pans.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that traps gas and gives the cake its structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flour to form the dough.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mixing the enriched dough in the morning. Adding butter, eggs and sugar to a yeast dough weighs it down and slows rising. Mixing until the dough is only slightly stiff keeps it airy enough to rise well in the pans.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, 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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