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Dessert

Madison Cake

A buttery cake with raisins, currants, citron, nutmeg, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Madison Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar until very light.

  2. Add the cream to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Whisk the eggs lightly and gradually add them along with the flour and nutmeg.

  4. Finally, fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Line a baking pan with buttered paper and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a light, aerated batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.
Citron
Adds candied, aromatic flavour and chewy pieces through the cake.

The step that matters

Beat the butter and sugar until very light. Creaming beats air into the fat and sugar, which gives the cake its lift and light texture. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, so beat until the mixture looks pale and fluffy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, cream, 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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