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Dessert

Birthday Cake

A spiced cake made with currants, candied peel, almonds, spices, lemon rind, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Birthday 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease and line the cake pans with parchment paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the currants, flour, candied peel, almonds, spices, and lemon rind.

  4. Pour in the brandy and mix until combined.

  5. Divide the batter into the prepared pans.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake for 3 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Let the cake cool completely before icing.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Fine sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour and contributes moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully lets the batter emulsify and hold air. Adding them all at once can cause curdling and a denser, uneven crumb.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, almond, lemon, egg, brandy. 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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