Name: Very Good Common Plum Cakes
Ingredients: 5 ounces butter, softened; 3 pounds all-purpose flour; 5 ounces fine sugar; 6 ounces currants, washed and dried; pimento, finely powdered (to taste); 3 tablespoons yeast; 2 cups warm milk

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 ↓

Very Good Common Plum Cakes

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.

Make the dough

In a large bowl, mix the butter, flour, and sugar until well combined.
Add the currants and powdered pimento, mixing thoroughly.
In a separate bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm milk.
Combine the yeast mixture with the flour mixture to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

Divide the dough into 12 equal portions and shape into cakes.
Place the cakes on a floured baking sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Butter and flour 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the dough's structure once mixed with liquid and yeast.
Yeast: Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and dissolves the yeast to form the dough.
Currants: Add pockets of sweetness and fruitiness throughout the cake.
Fine sugar: Adds sweetness and helps browning in the baked cakes.

The step that matters

Dissolving the yeast in warm milk. Yeast is sensitive to temperature. Milk that is too hot can kill it, while milk that is too cool slows fermentation, so the dough may not rise properly.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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Very Good Common Plum Cakes