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Dessert

Raised Bread Cake

A sweet raised bread cake with raisins, citron, spices, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Raised Bread 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.

Make the sponge

  1. Set the sponge by mixing milk, salt, and yeast in a bowl at night.

Mix and rise

  1. When the sponge is light, add creamed butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg yolks and reserve the egg whites.

  3. Flour the raisins and citron, then fold them into the mixture carefully.

  4. Let the mixture rise, then stir it down and let it rise again.

  5. Pour the batter into deep tins, filling them about halfway, and let rise once more.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the gluten network that gives the cake its structure and holds the rise.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments the sponge, lifting the batter during each rise.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, and the whites help lighten the batter.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spices' flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown during baking.
Raisins
Add sweet, chewy pockets of fruit throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Flouring the raisins and citron before folding. Dusting the fruit in flour helps it cling to the batter, so the raisins and citron are less likely to sink to the bottom of the tins during baking.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg. 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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