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Dessert

A Rich Cake

A rich cake made with currants, spices, and fruit peel, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Rich Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Plump the currants by warming them near the fire.

  3. Prepare a cake pan by greasing it.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs well and then work in the almond paste.

  2. In another bowl, cream the softened butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Gradually add the flour, sugar, sherry, brandy, and spices to the butter mixture, mixing well.

  4. Fold in the plumped currants and citrus peels just before filling the pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven for 4 hours, checking for doneness by inserting a knife into the center.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Currants
Provide fruit, chewy texture and sweetness throughout the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness, tenderness and a fine crumb when creamed.
Almond paste
Contributes moisture, sweetness and nutty flavor to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cake structure as it bakes.
Double-refined sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps tenderize the crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Baking for 4 hours. A long, low-moisture bake can dry the cake or leave the center underbaked, so the knife test at the center is important to confirm doneness before cooling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, flour, butter, almond, egg, sugar, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, flour, butter, almond, egg, sugar, clove. 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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