Skip to main content
Dessert

A Good Plum Cake

A moist plum cake flavored with lemon zest, nutmeg, and brandy, studded with currants and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Good Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat butter until creamy, similar to making pound cake.

  3. Mix in flour, cut peels and citron, currants, lemon zest, nutmeg, pudding spice, brandy, and eggs.

  4. Add chopped sweet almonds to the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Line a cake hoop with paper and butter the bottom and sides.

  2. Pour mixture into the prepared hoop.

  3. Bake for several hours, checking for doneness like you would with a Savoy cake.

  4. Remove hoop when done, but leave the paper on.

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 + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming butter traps air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as the cake sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps keep the cake moist.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking for several hours at low heat. Long, gentle baking at 300°F lets the heavy fruit cake set through the center without the outside browning or drying out. Test for doneness rather than relying on the time alone.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, lemon, nutmeg, brandy, egg, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, lemon, nutmeg, brandy, egg, almond. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes