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Dessert

Thanksgiving Cake

A yeast-leavened cake with raisins, spices, and butter, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Thanksgiving Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix flour, yeast, and warm milk to form a dough.

  2. Set aside to rise.

Mix and rest

  1. Once risen, add sugar, creamed butter, eggs, raisins, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix well.

  2. Let the mixture stand overnight in a warm place to rise again.

  3. Add baking soda and mix thoroughly.

  4. Pour the batter into pans and let it stand for about 20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for nearly an hour.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 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. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 dough and cake together.
Yeast
Ferments the dough so it rises before and during the overnight rest.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set and hold its crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and contributes to browning in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to produce gas that lifts the cake.

The step that matters

Overnight rise before adding baking soda. The dough needs its full rise so the yeast can build structure and flavor. Baking soda should be mixed in thoroughly so it reacts evenly and lifts the batter rather than leaving pockets or a dense, uneven crumb.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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