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Dessert

Irish Luncheon Cakes

Irish Luncheon Cakes are sweet, buttery cakes with currants and candied peel, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Irish Luncheon Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, powdered sugar, and salt.

  3. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Stir in the currants, candied peel, and baking soda.

  5. Add the whisked egg whites and enough buttermilk to form a moderately firm dough.

Bake and serve

  1. Half fill buttered tins with the dough.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour, or until light brown.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Egg whites
Whisked to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cakes a light, risen structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acidity to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create a tender, crumbly texture and richness.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity to form the dough and activate the baking soda.
Currants
Provide sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Adding the whisked egg whites and buttermilk. Overmixing after the egg whites go in knocks out the air they hold, while too little buttermilk leaves the dough too dry to hold together. Fold gently and add buttermilk only until the dough is moderately firm.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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