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 ↓
Sultana Cake
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.
Mix the dough
In a bowl, rub ¼ lb of butter into ½ lb of flour.
Add ¼ lb of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ lb of sultanas.
Grate the rind of the lemon into the bowl.
Chop 1 oz of candied peel and add it to the mixture.
Add the liquids
In another bowl, combine ½ cup of milk with the yolk of 1 egg.
Mix the milk and egg with the other ingredients thoroughly.
Bake and serve
Butter a cake tin.
Whisk the egg white until stiff and gently fold it into the mixture.
Pour the batter into the tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Check with a knife to ensure the cake is done before removing it from the tin.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 its gluten and starch set during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown and stay soft.
- Egg
- Yolk binds and enriches the batter; whisked white traps air that lifts the cake.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the whisked egg white. Whisked egg white holds air that lifts the cake. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the batter and yields a dense cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, 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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