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Dessert

Sultana Cake

A moist cake made with sultana raisins, candied peel, lemon rind, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Sultana Cake

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 ↓

Sultana Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine the flour in a bowl.

  2. Rub the butter into the flour with your hands.

  3. Add the sugar, baking powder, and sultana raisins.

  4. Grate the lemon rind into the mixture.

  5. Add the chopped candied peel.

  6. Mix the milk with the egg yolks in a separate bowl. Stir the milk and egg mixture into the dry ingredients.

Bake and cool

  1. Butter a cake tin.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

  3. Pour the batter into the tin and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  4. Once baked, turn the cake out to cool on its side or on a sieve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to tenderise the crumb and add richness.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently and briefly until just combined to keep the rise.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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