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 ↓
Webster 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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then add to the wet mixture.
Divide the batter in half.
Layer and bake
Add the floured raisins, molasses, and spices to one half.
Pour the fruit batter into a cake tin and bake for about 20 minutes until a slight crust forms on top.
Carefully draw the cake tin to the edge of the oven without jarring it.
Gently turn the plain batter over the fruit batter in the tin.
Bake until fully cooked.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,577 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness through fat coating the flour.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure once heated and set.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lifts the batter so the cake rises.
- Raisins
- Add moisture, chew and sweetness to the fruit half of the batter.
- Molasses
- Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the fruit batter.
The step that matters
Carefully draw the cake tin to the edge of the oven without jarring it.. Batter that is only starting to set is fragile, and jarring it can deflate bubbles and disturb the layers before the crust firms, leaving a denser cake.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, molasses):
- Raisinthe original
- Vanillafits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Peachfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, molasses. 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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