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Dessert

Imperial Cake

A rich fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, raisins, almonds, citron, currants, brandy, rose water, lemon, and optional mace and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Imperial 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with a little rose water.

  2. Beat the eggs separately and add them to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the flour, raisins, almonds, citron, currants (if using), brandy, rose water, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  4. If desired, add mace and baking soda to improve flavor.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into three loaf pans.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that creates a tender, rich crumb when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to help the cake rise.
Almonds
Contribute nutty flavor and a slightly firm, crunchy texture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness at the end of baking. Starch and egg proteins set as the batter bakes. Overbaking drives off too much moisture, leaving a dry, crumbly cake, so check the center with a toothpick.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, raisin, almond, brandy, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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