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Dessert

Raised Cakes

A yeast-raised cake flavored with nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, mace, and studded with currants and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Raised Cakes

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. Mix the flour, yeast, and milk like bread.

  2. Let it rise until fully light.

  3. Add the sugar, butter, eggs, wine, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, and mace. Mix well.

Rise and fill

  1. Transfer the mixture into deep pans.

  2. If the weather is cool, let it stand until the next day.

  3. When it is very light again, fold in the currants and raisins.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they rise and bake.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light before baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set and hold its crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps browning during baking.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before adding the fruit. Yeast needs time to build gas and lighten the dough. Folding in currants and raisins too early can weigh it down and stop it becoming light, so the cakes may bake dense.

“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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