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Dessert

Capital Luncheon Cake, That Icill Keep Six Months

A preserved cake made with flour, treacle, ginger, sugar, caraway, candied lemon peel, butter, soda, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Capital Luncheon Cake, That Icill Keep Six Months

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, treacle, ground ginger, sugar, ground caraway seed, and candied lemon peel.

  2. Warm the butter and mix it into the dry ingredients.

  3. Dissolve the carbonate of soda in a little boiling water and stir it into the warmed treacle.

  4. Combine the treacle mixture with the other ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered tin and bake for 2 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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ginger + carawaytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Caraway + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark colour to the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acidic treacle to produce gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Egg
Binds the ingredients and helps give the cake its structure.

The step that matters

Dissolving the carbonate of soda in boiling water. Carbonate of soda needs to be fully dissolved and stirred into the treacle so it reacts evenly. Uneven distribution can leave pockets of gas bubbles or dense patches in the cake.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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