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Dessert

Cup-cakes, in Gem Pans

Cup cakes made in gem pans with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, lemon extract, topped with raisins or currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cup-cakes, in Gem Pans

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk, baking powder, flour, and lemon extract until combined.

Fill the pans

  1. Heat the gem pans slightly and grease them thoroughly with butter.

  2. Place a tablespoon of batter in each gem pan.

  3. Top with 3-4 floured raisins or a few floured currants.

  4. Add another tablespoon of batter to each gem pan, covering the fruit.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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. 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. Butter + flourtop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 add richness and a tender crumb, and greases the pans.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cupcakes set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cupcakes rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cupcakes as the batter sets.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Filling the gem pans. Batter and fruit must be divided evenly so each cupcake bakes at the same rate. Flouring the raisins or currants helps keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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