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Dessert

Yule Cake

A sweet, spiced cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, currants, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Yule 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

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

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Stir in the brandy, nutmeg, cloves, and currants.

  3. Add a pinch of ammonia and mix until combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a paper-lined tin.

Bake and finish

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

  2. Decorate the cake according to your preference.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender structure and rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create air bubbles when creamed with the butter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the cake its structure.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds moisture and aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Eggs emulsify into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them one at a time and mixing well between additions keeps the batter smooth, so it does not split and lose the air trapped during creaming.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, butter, nutmeg, clove, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, butter, nutmeg, clove, egg. 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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