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Dessert

Plain Cake

A cake made with flour, baking soda, currants, brown sugar, mixed spice, and tartaric acid, baked at 350°F.

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

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Plain 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.

  3. Rub in the clean fat until well mixed.

  4. Add the currants, brown sugar, and mixed spice.

Mix and bake

  1. Dissolve the tartaric acid in a little water.

  2. Mix the cake batter with water, adding the tartaric acid last.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased tin.

  4. Bake for 2 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 structure of the cake as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, helping the cake rise.
Clean fat
Rubbed into the flour to tenderize the crumb and add richness.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit flavor and chewy pockets throughout the cake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to browning and a soft crumb.
Tartaric acid
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to produce lift.

The step that matters

Adding the tartaric acid last. Baking soda and tartaric acid react as soon as they are wet, releasing gas. Adding the acid last and baking promptly keeps that gas in the batter, so the cake rises rather than going flat.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. 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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