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Dessert

Tumbler Cake

A moist cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, molasses, milk, baking soda, spices, raisins, currants, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Tumbler Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the eggs, molasses, and milk, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the baking soda and spices.

  5. Fold in the raisins and currants.

  6. Gradually add flour until the batter reaches a thick consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the cake rise and darken.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and browning to the crumb.
Flour
Builds the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be added gradually until the batter is thick but still pourable. Too much flour makes the cake dry and dense, while too little leaves it weak and greasy after baking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, molasses, milk, raisin, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, molasses, milk, raisin, flour. 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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