Skip to main content
Dessert

Currant Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, currants, eggs, flour, brandy, candied orange and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while beating.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks together.

  4. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Fold in the flour and currants.

  6. Stir in the brandy and candied orange and citron.

  7. Beat the mixture until very light.

Bake

  1. Pour into pans and bake.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

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
Creamed with sugar, it traps air that gives the cake a tender structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for a lighter crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness, with the whites helping the cake rise and set.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that carries through the cake.

The step that matters

Beating until very light. Beating incorporates air into the creamed butter, sugar and eggs. This air expands in the oven and gives the cake lift and an even crumb. Under-beating leaves a dense cake.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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

More currant cake recipes

Raisin 6Rich 5Lemon 3 See all 192 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes