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Dessert

English Tea Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, citron, nutmeg, and orange peel, baked until light.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

English Tea Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat eggs, sugar, and melted butter together in a bowl.

  3. Dissolve yeast in warm water and add to mixture.

  4. Stir in lukewarm milk, raisins, chopped citron, grated nutmeg, and orange peel.

  5. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

  6. Let dough rise for 4 hours or until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape dough into rolls or roll it out and place in a pie pan.

  2. Allow it to rise again until light.

  3. Bake in preheated oven, watching closely to prevent burning.

  4. Once baked, split cakes, butter them, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the dough.

The step that matters

Watching the bake. The cakes can scorch on the outside before the centre sets, so they need close watching. Sugar browns quickly at high oven heat, so even a short lapse can burn the surface.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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