Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Plum Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
In a bowl, combine 1 pound of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Rub in ¼ pound of clarified dripping until no lumps remain.
Add ½ pound of washed and dried plums or currants (pitted if using plums) to the flour mixture.
Cut 2 ounces of candied peel into small pieces and add to the bowl along with ¼ pound of sugar (omit if disliked).
In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg with ½ cup of milk.
Stir the egg and milk mixture into the dry ingredients until well combined.
Bake and serve
Grease a tin with dripping and pour the mixture into it.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.
Once baked, turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side against a plate.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Plum + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together406 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Provides the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
- Plums or currants
- Add moisture and fruity sweetness throughout the crumb.
- Clarified dripping
- Rubbed into the flour to tenderise the crumb and add richness.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and helps give the cake its set structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and lightens.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg and milk. Once the liquid meets the flour, gluten begins to form, so stir just until combined. Overmixing makes the cake tough and dense rather than light.
Swap the plum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Plumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, 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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