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Dessert

Raisin Cakk

A layered cake with lemon-flavored batter and raisin filling made from boiled sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Raisin Cakk

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Break the eggs into a teacup and mix with sweet cream until well combined.

  2. Add sugar, flour, and baking powder, then flavor with lemon.

  3. Bake in layers at 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, dissolve 1 cup of sugar in 3 tablespoons of water and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. While hot, pour the syrup onto the beaten egg whites and stir until cool.

  3. Add the chopped raisins and spread between the layers.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb once baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Egg whites
Whipped with hot syrup to form a soft, stable filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup onto the beaten egg whites. The syrup must be hot and poured in a thin stream while beating, so it cooks the egg whites into a stable, glossy foam. Pouring too fast or letting the syrup cool can leave the filling runny or grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, flour, raisin. 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.

More raisin cake recipes

Spiced 34Molasses 30Eggless 11Caraway 7Currant 7Filling 7 See all 154 →

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