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Dessert

A Plain Luncheon Cake

A simple cake made with flour, butter, raisins, candied peel, sugar, eggs, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Plain Luncheon 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. Grease a cake tin or two small ones.

  2. Mix the baking powder into the flour.

  3. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine crumbs.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and add 1-2 tablespoons of cold milk.

  2. Mix the sultanas, candied peel, and sugar into the flour.

  3. Add the eggs and milk, mixing until a stiff dough forms.

Bake and rest

  1. Place the dough into the tin and quickly put it in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. Let the cake cool and do not cut it until the next day.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the starch sets during baking.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to tenderise the crumb and add richness.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cake rises in the oven.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the crumb.

The step that matters

Quickly putting the dough in the oven. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is moist and warm, so delaying the bake can weaken the rise and leave a denser cake.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, sugar, 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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