Skip to main content
Dessert

Election Cake

A sweet loaf cake with raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, and optional almonds, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Election Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

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 milk, baking powder, vanilla and almond extracts.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, and chopped almonds if using.

Bake

  1. Divide the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 1.5 hours 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air that gives the cake a light, fine crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the loaf.
Currants
Add small bursts of tart sweetness and moisture throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing only until combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, raisin, lemon. 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.

More election cake recipes

Hartford 10Connecticut 6 See all 19 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes