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 ↓
Lady 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.
Mix until just combined. Stir in spices and raisins if desired.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Add structure and richness as they bind the batter and set during baking.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lightness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to lift the cake.
The step that matters
Mix until just combined. Overmixing the batter after adding flour develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stop once the dry ingredients are just incorporated.
Swap the raisin
The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour, milk, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinthe original
- Coconutfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, milk, cream. 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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