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Dessert

Scripture Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, flour, sugar, raisins, figs, almonds, eggs, milk, honey, spices, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Scripture 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  4. Reserve ½ cup of flour to mix with the raisins, figs, and almonds.

  5. Combine the remaining flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and spices.

  6. Add the egg yolks, milk, and honey to the creamed mixture. Mix well.

  7. Fold in the egg whites gently.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Mix the reserved flour with the fruit and nuts.

  2. Fold the mixture into the batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  4. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped by folding add lift and an airy crumb, while yolks add richness and structure.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilises the whipped egg whites, and reacts with baking soda to help rising.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold the air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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

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