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Dessert

Confectionery Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg whites, baking powder, vanilla, raisins, citron, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Confectionery Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  2. Add the milk and egg whites, mixing well.

  3. Sift the flour with baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.

  4. Flavor with vanilla.

Make the dark layer and bake

  1. For the variation, mix in raisins, citron, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and brandy.

  2. Bake in three layers: two light and one dark.

  3. Assemble with soft frosting.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Egg whites add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, butter traps air and adds richness and tenderness.
Flour
Flour forms the cake's structure once its starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness and deep colour to the dark layer.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it hold air when creamed with butter.

“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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