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Dessert

A Rich Cake

A rich cake made with currants, almonds, spices, brandy, and sweetmeats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Rich Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the softened butter until smooth.

  3. Add the sugar to the butter and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg yolks until frothy and strain through a sieve.

  5. Incorporate the ground almonds into the butter and sugar mixture.

  6. Gradually add the beaten egg yolks and mix until the batter is light and fluffy.

Bake

  1. Fold in the currants, flour, spices, ginger, sack, brandy, and sweetmeats.

  2. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake until golden brown.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

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

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Yolks emulsify with the butter and sugar, adding richness and helping bind the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the currants and batter together as the cake sets.
Currants
Add moisture, chewy texture and tart-sweet fruit flavor throughout the cake.
Blanched almonds
Ground almonds add body, moisture and a nutty flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the beaten egg yolks. Adding yolks slowly lets the emulsion form smoothly; adding them all at once can split the creamed butter and sugar, leaving a greasy, dense batter.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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