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Dessert

Plum Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, molasses, milk, spices, brandy, currants, raisins, citron, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum 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).

  2. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs, molasses, and milk, and mix well.

  4. Stir in the allspice, cinnamon, mace, and brandy.

  5. Fold in the currants, raisins, and citron.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of warm water and add to the mixture.

  7. Gradually add flour until the batter thickens to your desired consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1 hour 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 tenderness to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep, sweet flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the cake rise and lighten.
Flour
Builds the batter structure so it sets into a cake around the fruit.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda and flour. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the molasses, to release gas and lift the batter. Adding flour gradually lets you stop once the batter reaches the right thickness, since too much flour makes the cake dense and dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, molasses, milk, allspice, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, molasses, milk, allspice, cinnamon. 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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