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Dessert

Tumbler Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tumbler Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs, molasses, and milk, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, spices, raisins, and currants.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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 moisture as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly acidic flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Milk
Adds liquid that hydrates the flour and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Stir the dry ingredients in only until combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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

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