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 ↓
A Nice Fruit 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.
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then add the yolks to the butter and sugar mixture.
Mix in the spices, then add the molasses, followed by the fruit and flour alternately.
If needed, add more flour based on the size of the eggs and the amount of flour used.
Grease and line your baking pans with parchment paper.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, raisin, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, raisin, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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