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Dessert

Plain Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake with sultanas, bitter and sweet almonds, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Plain Cake

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Plain Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the yeast starter

  1. Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of warm water (100°F in winter, 85°F in summer).

  2. Make a batter with the yeast mixture and 2 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Let the batter rise in a cool place.

Make the dough

  1. Prepare the fruit and almonds.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, fruit, butter (or oil), sugar, cinnamon, and eggs.

  3. Add the yeast mixture and enough lukewarm milk to moisten the dough.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place.

Bake

  1. Grease cake tins and fill them with the dough.

  2. Bake for 1 ½ hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise and become airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Butter or oil
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise in a warm place. Yeast works slowly in cold conditions and quickly in overly hot ones. Rising at a suitable warm temperature lets the gas build up gradually, giving a light crumb rather than a dense or collapsed one.

“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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