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Dessert

Sultana Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, lard, sugar, eggs, flour, currants, raisins, candied peel, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Sultana Cake

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and lard.

  3. Add the sugar and beat until well combined.

  4. Gradually sprinkle in the flour.

  5. Mix the batter well.

  6. Add the eggs and enough milk to achieve a stiff batter.

  7. Fold in the currants, raisins, and a little candied peel.

  8. Mix in the baking powder.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake for 2 hours.

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.

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.

  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. Currant + raisintop 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
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the cake stay tender.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and short.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and lightens.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it meets liquid and heat, so it should be folded in gently and the batter baked promptly. Overmixing knocks out air and gas, which can leave the cake dense and flat.

Swap the currant

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

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

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