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 ↓
Composition Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).
Wash, pick, and dry the currants, then lightly flour them.
Pick and seed the raisins, then lightly flour them as well.
Shave the citron into very thin bits.
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs well and then stir them into the butter and sugar mixture.
Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.
Add the floured currants, floured raisins and citron to the mixture.
Bake
Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake in the slow oven until done.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the cake its structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and carries flavour through the crumb.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps create a creamy, aerated base when beaten with butter.
- Dried currants
- Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
- Raisins
- Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Lightly flouring the currants and raisins. Flour coats the dried fruit so it is less likely to sink to the bottom of the batter during baking. Dried fruit that is wet or unfloured tends to settle and cluster, so the fruit should be dry before it is floured.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, raisin):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, raisin. 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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