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Dessert

Victoria Cake

A light currant and candied peel sponge cake baked in a Yorkshire tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Victoria Cake

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 batter

  1. Dissolve the sugar in water over heat to make a syrup.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Pour the boiling syrup over the eggs while stirring continuously.

  4. Add the butter and mix well.

  5. Stir in the flour, currants, candied peel, and baking powder.

  6. Add milk to achieve a batter that is not too stiff.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a Yorkshire tin.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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

Flour
Forms the sponge's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help trap air in the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, making the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to the right consistency.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup over the eggs. The hot syrup partly cooks the egg proteins, so the eggs can scramble if the syrup is poured in one spot without stirring. Stirring continuously spreads the heat evenly and keeps the mixture smooth.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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