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 ↓
Imperial 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the lemon juice and rind.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.
Add the fruit and flavourings
Fold in the almonds, raisins, and citron.
Dredge the fruit with the extra flour before adding to the batter.
Mix in the nectarine extract and rose water.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,781 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + almondtop 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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Sugar
- Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
- Eggs
- Add structure as they set and bind the batter together.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Almonds
- Add crunch and a nutty flavour, and their oils keep the crumb moist.
- Raisins
- Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Dredge the fruit in extra flour before folding it in. Flour coats the raisins, almonds and citron so they stay suspended in the batter rather than sinking to the bottom while the cake bakes.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour, almond, raisin, rose):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, almond, raisin, rose. 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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