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Dessert

American Currant Cake

A moist cake made with margarine, sugar, eggs, currants, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, lemon essence, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

American Currant 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the margarine and sugar together until light and creamy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition for 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in the currants.

  5. Add the sifted flour, baking powder, and milk, and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased and paper-lined cake tin.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes.

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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Margarine
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Castor sugar
Creams with the fat to create air bubbles and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it sets.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Currants
Add small pockets of fruit sweetness and chew throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually while beating keeps the emulsion stable and holds the trapped air. Adding them too quickly can curdle the batter, which may lead to a denser cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, lemon, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, lemon, milk. 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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