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To Make a Rich Cake

A spiced currant and almond cake baked at 400°F for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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To Make a Rich Cake

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make a Rich Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cream the butter with your hands before adding any ingredients.

  2. Mix in the sugar until well combined.

  3. Beat the eggs well and strain them through a sieve.

  4. Work in the almonds first, then add the eggs and beat until thick and white.

Make the batter

  1. Stir in the sack, brandy, and spices.

  2. Gradually add the flour while mixing.

  3. Keep the currants warm before adding them to the cake.

  4. When the oven is ready, fold in the currants and sweet-meats.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for four hours.

  2. Stir continuously during baking.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, when beaten, add lift and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed.
Currants
Add fruitiness and moisture throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add richness, body and a nutty flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Stirring continuously during baking. A cake this dense and rich bakes slowly, and constant stirring during a long bake is unusual and can disturb the structure as it sets. Keep the oven steady and avoid opening it or disturbing the batter unnecessarily.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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