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Dessert

Plum Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, flour, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the raisins and flour until fully incorporated.

  4. Pour in the rum and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, moist texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the cake structure.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavor, and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time. Mixing each egg fully before adding the next keeps the butter and sugar mixture emulsified. A stable mixture holds air and keeps the batter smooth, which helps give a light, even crumb.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Bananafits less well
  4. Pineapplefits less well

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