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Dessert

Plain Cake

A simple cake made with dough, eggs, butter or dripping, sugar, currants, and a little salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Cake

Why it works: Butter and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Plain 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 the dough

  1. Lightly work the dough in a basin.

  2. Add the sugar, dripping (or butter), and 2 eggs.

  3. Thoroughly mix everything together.

Enrich and shape

  1. Add the remaining 2 eggs, one at a time.

  2. Work the mixture well, then fold in the currants.

  3. Fill a buttered mold with the mixture and let it rise in a warm place.

Bake

  1. Once risen, bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Common dough
Provides the base structure that holds the cake together as it rises.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown in the oven.
Currants
Add sweetness and pockets of fruit flavour through the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the remaining eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one blend fully into the fat and dough, forming a smooth emulsion. Adding them all at once can cause the mixture to separate or turn grainy, which affects the final texture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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