Name: Plum Cake, Made with Soda
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter; 1 pound all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ pound sugar; ½ pound currants, washed and dried; 2 ounces candied peel, cut into shreds; ½ pint milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 tablespoons warm milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Plum Cake, Made with Soda

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.
Add the salt, sugar, currants, and candied peel; mix thoroughly.
Beat in the milk to form a paste.
Dissolve the baking soda in the warm milk and stir into the dough.
Beat the mixture again until well combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into a buttered tin.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 to 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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: Rubbed into the flour, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Milk: Hydrates the flour to form the paste and keeps the cake moist.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the warm milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly stirred through the batter so it reacts uniformly. Undissolved pockets can leave bitter spots or uneven rising.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

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

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

Currant Sherbet9 recipes

Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes

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Plum Cake, Made with Soda