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Dessert

Simnel Cake

A fruit cake with layers of almond paste and royal icing, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Simnel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the cake

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, nutmeg, and currants.

  2. Add the butter, brandy, eggs, and vinegar, and mix until well combined.

  3. Spread a layer of the mixture in a prepared cake tin.

  4. Place a layer of almond paste on top, then add another layer of the cake mixture.

Bake and decorate

  1. Bake for four hours.

  2. Once baked, decorate with almond paste, preserved fruits, and royal icing.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dense fruit and layers together as the cake sets.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking, giving the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during the long bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture through the fruit cake.

The step that matters

Baking for four hours at a low temperature. A dense fruit cake needs a long, gentle bake so the centre cooks fully and sets before the outside darkens too much. Rushing it with higher heat can leave the middle wet or the crust burnt.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, brandy, nutmeg, raisin, vinegar, almond, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, brandy, nutmeg, raisin, vinegar, almond, butter. 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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