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Dessert

Plum Cake

A buttery, spiced cake with currants, raisins, sweetmeats, almonds, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks and beat well.

  3. Add the flour, spices, almonds, currants, raisins, and sweetmeats.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.

  5. Finally, mix in the brandy.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake pan and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake for 3 to 4 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Currants
Add chewy fruit pieces and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that lightens the heavy batter. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing so the cake rises and stays tender.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, almond):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, almond. 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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