Skip to main content
Dessert

Luncheon Cake

A spiced cake made with flour, sugar, sultanas, candied peel, allspice, egg, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,302 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Luncheon 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

  1. In a basin, combine the flour and baking powder, then rub in the ground allspice.

  2. Add the sugar, sultanas, and candied peel.

  3. Beat the egg well and mix it with the milk.

  4. Combine the egg and milk mixture with the other ingredients and beat well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours.

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 + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and contributes to browning at the surface.
Sultanas
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Beating the egg and milk into the dry ingredients. Beating after combining develops gluten in the flour, which gives a firmer crumb. Mixing until just combined keeps the cake tender while still letting the baking powder lift the batter.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes