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Dessert

A Plain Luncheon Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and butter a cake tin or two small ones.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the baking powder into the flour, then rub in the butter until it resembles fine crumbs.

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

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

  4. Add the egg mixture to the flour and mix well with a fork, using just enough milk to form a stiff dough.

Bake and rest

  1. Transfer the dough to the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Let the cake cool and do not cut it until the day after baking.

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. 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 main structure of the cake as its proteins hydrate and set.
Butter
Adds fat that coats flour particles, giving a tender, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness, structure and moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and softens its crumb by interfering with gluten development.
Candied peel
Adds sweetness and a citrus aroma throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mixing the egg mixture into the flour. Mix only until the dough just comes together, using just enough milk for a stiff dough. Overworking the dough or adding too much liquid develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender.

“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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