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Dessert

Republican Cake

A raisin cake with butter, wine, cream, and eggs baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Republican 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

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

  4. Stir in the white wine and cream.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, raisins, nutmeg, and ammonia.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a paper-lined deep cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and richness as they set the batter's crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its starches set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when creamed with butter, helps give a lighter texture.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully before adding the next keeps the emulsion stable. If the mixture curdles, the batter can turn heavy and dense.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, white wine, sugar, nutmeg, egg, 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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