Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Currant 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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the buttermilk and mix well.
Make the batter
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, grated nutmeg, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.
Fold in the currants and eggs until evenly distributed.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich in flavor.
- Eggs
- Add structure, moisture, and richness to the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Buttermilk
- Adds moisture and acidity, and activates the baking soda for lift.
The step that matters
Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, and overmixing makes the cake tough and dense. Stir only until the flour disappears, then fold in the currants gently.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, buttermilk, flour, nutmeg, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, buttermilk, flour, nutmeg, egg. 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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