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Dessert

Scripture Cake

A spiced fruit cake made with raisins, figs, almonds, honey, and spices.

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 ↓

Scripture 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the water, honey, raisins, figs, and almonds.

  4. Add spices to taste and mix until combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Fig + honeytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

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

  5. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the crumb.
Figs
Add moisture and chewy texture along with natural sweetness.

The step that matters

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating air into the butter and sugar creates tiny bubbles that help the cake rise and give it an even, tender crumb. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, fig, almond, honey):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Apricotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, fig, almond, honey. 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.

More fruit cake recipes

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