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Dessert

Birthday Cake

A sweet cake made with margarine, sugar, eggs, dried fruit, candied peel, almonds, lemon rind, cinnamon, flour, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Birthday Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the margarine and castor sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the cleaned and dried fruits, grated almonds, lemon rind, and cinnamon.

  4. Sift the flour with the baking powder and fold it into the mixture.

  5. Add a little milk to achieve the desired consistency.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for about 2 hours.

  2. If desired, cover with Royal Icing after baking.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Margarine
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets when baked.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the margarine and sugar. Beating fat and sugar together traps air bubbles that expand during baking. Soft fat and well-creamed sugar give a lighter, more even crumb, while cold or underbeaten fat leaves a dense cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

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