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Dessert

Harrison Cake

A spiced raisin and currant loaf cake with molasses and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Harrison Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Add the brown sugar, molasses, egg yolks, and spices. Beat well.

  3. Gradually add the sweet milk and the beaten egg whites, alternating with the sifted flour mixed with baking powder.

  4. Fold in the raisins, currants, and sliced citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into loaf pans.

  2. Bake.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once the batter sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour, and darker colour to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness when beaten in.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and stays light.

The step that matters

Alternating the milk and egg whites with the flour. Adding the liquids and flour gradually and in turns keeps the batter smooth and well emulsified. Beaten egg whites hold air, so folding them in gently preserves the rise that the baking powder provides.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, molasses, milk, cinnamon, clove. 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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