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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, eggs, butter, ginger, molasses, raisins, sugar, baking soda, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Christmas 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, melted butter, ginger, molasses, raisins, and moist sugar.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the cream and add it to the mixture along with the vinegar. Stir until well combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into fancy molds and bake until done.

  2. Once baked, cover with icing as desired.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Vinegar
Reacts with the baking soda to produce lift in the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Eggs
Help bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the cream. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in evenly so it reacts with the vinegar throughout the batter. Uneven distribution leaves dense pockets or bitter spots in the finished cake.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, molasses, raisin, sugar, cream. 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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