Why it works: Almond and flour 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 ↓
Irish Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Cream the butter until smooth.
Sift in the sugar and mix well.
Add the yolks of the eggs, then fold in the beaten egg whites.
Mix for about an hour, then gradually add the flour.
Once thoroughly mixed, stir in the brandy.
Bake
Just before baking, fold in the currants, almonds, and lemon or citron peel.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake the cake.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 give the cake a rich, tender crumb and fat-based flavour.
- Eggs
- Beaten whites add lift and structure, while yolks contribute richness and binding.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its set structure.
- Almonds
- Add texture and nutty flavour to the crumb.
- Currants
- Provide chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavour depth to the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that lifts the batter; overmixing or deflating them during folding drives out the air and leaves a denser cake.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, almond, flour, brandy, lemon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, almond, flour, brandy, 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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