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Dessert

Thanksgiving Cake

A sweet yeast cake with raisins and currants baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together for one hour.

  2. Divide the mixture into two equal parts.

  3. Work one half into the light dough and let it rise.

  4. Incorporate the other half with the well-beaten eggs and let it rise again.

Add fruit and bake

  1. Add the water, baking soda, grated nutmeg, raisins, and currants.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one and a half hours.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Light dough
Forms the base structure that the cake rises and holds its shape from.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize it when beaten with butter.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the mixture hold its air and set in the oven.
Baking soda
Releases gas during baking to help the cake rise and lighten.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Incorporate the other half with the well-beaten eggs. Well-beaten eggs trap air and add structure, so mixing them in gently keeps the batter light and helps it rise evenly rather than turning dense or separating.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, 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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