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Dessert

Election Cake

A moist fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, almonds, vanilla, bitter almond extract, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Election Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.

  2. Add the eggs and beat a little longer.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking powder and mix it in.

  4. Fold in the raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, and almonds.

  5. Add the vanilla, bitter almond extract, and milk, mixing until consistent.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a paper-lined tin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 ½ 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and creamy traps air in the fat, which helps the cake rise and gives it an even, tender texture. Under-beating leaves a dense crumb.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, raisin, lemon, almond. 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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