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Dessert

Scotch Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, almonds, candied peel, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Scotch Cake

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

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

  2. Beat the butter to a cream, then gradually add the sugar.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well.

  4. Mix in the flour a little at a time, followed by the sweetmeats, almonds, and spices.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the batter.

  6. Stir in the brandy.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake pan and pour in the batter, smoothing the top.

  2. Sprinkle caraway confections over the top.

  3. Bake without moving until nearly done, to prevent the sweetmeats from sinking.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for lightness.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and whites, whipped and folded in, lighten the batter.
Candied orange peel
Adds chewy pieces of citrus sweetness and aroma throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake without moving until nearly done. Batter this dense and heavy with fruit can sink or collapse if jostled before the structure sets. Keeping the pan still while the eggs and flour set lets the sweetmeats stay suspended evenly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, rose, sugar, almond, nutmeg, caraway):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, rose, sugar, almond, nutmeg, caraway. 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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