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Dessert

Imperial Cake

A dense cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, almonds, citron, raisins, cloves, cinnamon, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Imperial 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light and add to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Gradually add the flour, reserving some for the fruit.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Chop the almonds and mix them with the citron and raisins.

  2. Fold the fruit and nuts into the batter last.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake tenderness and richness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crumb when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Overmixing or stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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