Name: Kneaded Plum Cake
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups sugar; ½ cup butter; ½ cup sour milk; 2 teaspoons cream; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon nutmeg; 1 cup chopped raisins; about 6 cups flour (or sufficient to knead)

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Kneaded Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the sour milk and cream, mixing well.
Stir in the baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chopped raisins.
Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to knead.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick and cut into oblong pieces.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cake rises.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Flour: Provides structure that holds the dough together and sets the crumb.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits about as well
Raisinthe original
Figfits less well
Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour. 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.