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Dessert

A Magnificent Christmas Cake

A rich fruitcake made with flour, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, butter, eggs, baking powder, milk, lemon, nutmeg, allspice, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

A Magnificent Christmas Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, butter, eggs, baking powder, and milk.

  2. Add lemon, nutmeg, allspice, and salt to taste.

  3. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

  4. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Once baked, ice the cake and trim it with holly wreath and branches.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lift the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Bake for 4 to 5 hours at low heat. A dense, fruit-packed batter needs a long, gentle bake so the centre sets fully before the outside over-browns or dries. Cooking too hot risks a burnt exterior with a raw middle.

Swap the currant

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

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

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