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Dessert

Twelfth Cakes

A spiced currant cake baked in hoops, finished with sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Twelfth Cakes

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Make a cavity in the center of the flour.

  2. Set a sponge with the yeast and warm milk.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, currants, spices, and candied peels to the sponge when it has risen.

  4. Mix all ingredients together with a little warm milk.

Fill and bake

  1. Prepare hoops by lining them with paper.

  2. Butter the hoops.

  3. Fill the hoops with the mixture.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Finish

  1. Once nearly cool, ice the cakes with sugar or leave them plain.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten and starch set during baking.
Active dry yeast
Ferments the sponge so the dough rises and becomes light before baking.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, coating flour particles to soften the crumb.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust during baking.
Currants
Provide moisture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Set a sponge with the yeast and warm milk. Yeast needs warm, not hot, liquid to stay alive; if the milk is too hot the yeast dies and the dough will not rise properly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mace):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mace. 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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