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Dessert

Seedless Raisin Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, seedless raisins, cinnamon, mace, brandy, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Seedless Raisin Cake

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

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, cinnamon, mace, and brandy; mix well.

  3. Beat the mixture for three minutes.

  4. Gradually add the milk, alternating with the prepared flour and floured raisins.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into four small loaf pans or pate pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while stiffly beaten whites are folded in to lighten the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light in texture.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a fluffy structure and sweetness, and aids browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Seedless raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the cake does not collapse or turn dense.

Swap the mace

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

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

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