Why it works: Plum and milk work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 406 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Plum Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, combine 1 lb of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.
Rub 2 oz of clarified dripping into the flour until no lumps remain.
Add ½ lb of plums or currants (washed and dried) to the flour mixture.
If using, cut 2 oz of candied peel into small pieces and add to the bowl along with ¼ lb of sugar.
In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg with 2 tablespoons of milk, then stir into the mixture.
Bake and cool
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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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).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten and starch set during baking.
- Dripping
- Adds richness and a tender, crumbly texture by coating flour particles and shortening the crumb.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture as it sets in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust during baking.
- Plums or currants
- Add fruit moisture and sweetness, and pockets of flavour throughout the crumb.
The step that matters
Rubbing the dripping into the flour. Fat must be worked evenly into the flour until no lumps remain, so it coats the flour particles and limits gluten formation. Unevenly rubbed fat produces a tough, uneven crumb and pockets of greasy dough.
Swap the plum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Plumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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