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Dessert

Luncheon Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, flour, ground rice, currants, candied lemon, and spices, baked and left to stand for two days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Caraway and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Luncheon 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

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

  2. Butter a cake tin and line the sides with buttered paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Mix in the flour, ground rice, salt, currants, caraway seeds, grated nutmeg, and candied lemon.

  3. Dissolve the carbonate of soda in the boiling milk and let it cool.

  4. Stir the beaten eggs into the cooled milk, then combine with the dry ingredients.

Bake and rest

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Check for doneness by inserting a skewer; it should come out clean.

  3. Let the cake stand for 2 days before cutting.

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. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Fine flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while helping the batter hold air when creamed.

The step that matters

Dissolving the carbonate of soda in the boiling milk. Carbonate of soda must be fully dissolved and the milk cooled before mixing with the eggs, so the gas forms evenly and the batter does not overheat or lose its rising power before baking.

Swap the caraway

The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, rice, sugar, currant, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, rice, sugar, currant, nutmeg, lemon. 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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