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Dessert

Sultana Cake

A moist cake made with flour, butter, sugar, sultanas, lemon rind, candied peel, baking powder, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Sultana Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sultana Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA good steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the mixture.

  5. Add the sultanas, grated lemon rind, and candied peel, mixing well.

  6. Add a little milk to achieve a smooth batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set in the baked crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Castor sugar
Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Sultanas
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them all at once can cause curdling, which may leave a coarser, denser crumb.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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.

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