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Dessert

Plum Cake

A moist cake made with butter, molasses, eggs, milk, baking soda, brandy, lemon extract, flour, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Plum 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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and molasses.

  2. Add the eggs, milk, baking soda, brandy, and lemon extract; mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.

  4. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 45 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. 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 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
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and moist texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a moist, deep flavor to the cake.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the cake its body and holds the fruit.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to a stiff batter. Adding flour gradually and stopping at a stiff batter keeps the texture controlled. Overmixing once flour is in develops too much gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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