Name: A Good Family Cake
Ingredients: 1 quart (4 cups) of dough; ½ pound (2 sticks) of butter; ½ pound of moist sugar; 1 cup of cream; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon of allspice; 1 pound of currants; 2 ounces of candied peel, cut small or 1 ounce of carraway seeds

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Good Family 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a large bowl, mix the dough, butter, sugar, cream, and eggs until well combined.
Add the allspice, currants, and candied peel or carraway seeds, and mix thoroughly.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

Bake for 1.5 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Dough: Forms the base structure of the cake, holding the other ingredients together.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Currants: Add pockets of tart, chewy fruit throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Cakes dense with fruit can look set outside while the center is still wet. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms the batter has fully set, so the cake does not sink or turn gummy as it cools.

Swap the allspice

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

Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Allspicethe original
Macefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, egg, currant. 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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A Good Family Cake