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Dessert

Buttermilk Cake

A moist cake made with buttermilk, currants, raisins, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Buttermilk Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  3. Add the buttermilk and mix well.

  4. Dredge the currants and raisins in 1 cup of flour, then fold them into the batter along with the citron.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk and add to the mixture.

  6. Season with spices to taste and add enough flour to stiffen the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 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.

  1. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, and reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Flour
Provides structure once mixed with the liquids and sets during baking.
Currants and raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk. Baking soda must be evenly dispersed in the batter so it reacts with the acidic buttermilk and leavens the cake uniformly. Clumps can leave bitter spots and dense or uneven rising.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, buttermilk, raisin, flour, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, buttermilk, raisin, flour, clove, nutmeg. 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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