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Dessert

Martha Washington Tea Cake

A moist tea cake with raisins, currants, and citron, flavored with lemon rind, lemon juice, nutmeg, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Martha Washington Tea 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. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Alternately add the sour milk and flour to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Flour the fruit and stir it in last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Cover with buttered paper to prevent over-browning.

  3. Bake for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lighten the batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whipped whites by overmixing removes the air that gives the cake its lift, leaving a denser crumb.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg. 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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