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Baking

Confectionery Cake

A layered cake of light and dark batter with raisins, citron, molasses, spices and brandy, finished with soft frosting.

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 ↓

Confectionery Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the flour, milk, egg whites, and baking powder. Mix until smooth.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine 1 tablespoon of the batter with the raisins, citron, flour, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and brandy.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into three layers, two light and one dark.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Cool the layers.

  4. Assemble the layers with soft frosting.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine-textured crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift as they set in the oven, helping the cake hold its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, making the layers rise and turn light.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the dark layer.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of moisture and sweetness to the dark layer.

The step that matters

Baking until a toothpick comes out clean. Underbaked layers stay wet in the center and can collapse as they cool, while overbaking dries the crumb. Checking the center with a toothpick helps the layers set fully without drying out.

“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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