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Dessert

Sour Milk Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with sour milk, sugar, butter, flour, raisins, currants, figs, dates, walnuts, cloves, ginger, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Sour Milk Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the egg and sour milk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cloves, and ginger.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, figs, dates, and walnuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 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. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  5. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stop stirring as soon as no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, flour, raisin, fig, dates. 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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