Name: A Nice Family Cake
Ingredients: 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour; 1 cup moist sugar; ¾ cup butter, softened; 1 cup currants; ⅓ cup white wine; ⅓ cup milk; 8 large eggs; nutmeg, to taste; lemon peel, to taste

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 ↓

A Nice 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the white wine and milk.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.
Fold in the currants, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake for 45-50 minutes 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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: Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs: Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour: Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Moist sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma, and its liquid contributes to the batter's moisture.
Currants: Add tart fruit flavor and pockets of chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing flour only until just combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, white wine, milk, egg, nutmeg. 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.