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Dessert

Lunch Cake

A cake made with butter, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, mixed peel, sultanas, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lunch Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lunch Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Rub the butter into the flour and sugar until well combined.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the milk and mix into the flour to form a stiff batter.

  2. Fold in the mixed peel and sultanas.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin.

  2. Bake for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, until a skewer 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg whites
Whisked until stiff, they trap air and help the cake rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and binding to the batter, helping it hold together.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Wholemeal flour
Forms the main structure of the cake and gives it a firmer, nuttier crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning during baking.
Sultanas
Add moisture and sweetness as they plump and soften in the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites hold air that lifts the batter. Overmixing or deflating them with vigorous stirring knocks out the air, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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