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Dessert

Scotch Cake

A sweet cake with raisins, currants, citron, orange peel, walnuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Scotch Cake

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 ↓

Scotch 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Beat the eggs until very light, then gradually add them to the butter and sugar mixture, beating vigorously.

  4. Add the sifted flour, then the vanilla and pounded walnuts, mixing well.

  5. Fold in the chopped fruits last.

Bake and rest

  1. Pour the batter into a large loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour.

  2. For best flavor, let the cake sit for a week or two before serving.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Set during baking to form the cake's structure, and add richness and moisture.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold moisture and aid browning.
Pounded english walnuts
Add nutty flavor and a rich, slightly firm texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs until very light. Beating the eggs well traps air that helps the batter rise. Adding them gradually keeps the butter and sugar mixture emulsified, so the batter does not curdle or separate.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, sugar, raisin, orange, walnut. 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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