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Dessert

Luncheon Cake, Plain

A sweet cake made with flour, baking powder, salt, beef dripping, sugar, currants, nutmeg, caraway seeds, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and caraway 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, Plain

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. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Rub in the beef dripping until well combined.

  4. Stir in the sugar, currants, grated nutmeg, and caraway seeds if using.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the eggs and milk, mixing until a paste forms.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin.

  3. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Rest

  1. Let the cake sit for a day before cutting for best flavor.

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. Nutmeg + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake batter.
Beef dripping
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and lightens.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a paste and adds moisture.

Swap the caraway

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, sugar, currant, nutmeg, 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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