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 ↓
Sultana Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Grease a cake tin.
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the flour and butter, rubbing them together with your hands.
Add the sugar, baking powder, and sultana raisins to the mixture.
Grate the rind of the lemon into the bowl.
Chop the candied peel into small pieces and add it to the mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix the milk with the yolks of the eggs.
Pour the milk and egg mixture into the other ingredients and mix well.
Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the batter.
Bake and cool
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Once baked, turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side or on a sieve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and binding; whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise and become light.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter comes together.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
The step that matters
Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold air that lifts the batter. Stirring vigorously or overmixing knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake, so fold gently and only until combined.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, milk. 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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