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Dessert

Rich Yeast Cake

A sweet yeast cake with currants, candied lemon and orange peel, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Rich Yeast Cake

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.

Prepare the sponge

  1. Prepare a sponge with flour, sugar, milk, and yeast. Let it sit until bubbly.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sponge with softened butter, currants, candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon.

  2. Grease a cake hoop and pour in the batter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 structure of the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.
Candied orange peel
Adds sweet citrus aroma and bright, chewy fruit pieces.
Candied lemon peel
Adds sweet citrus aroma and bright, chewy fruit pieces.

The step that matters

Let the sponge sit until bubbly. The yeast must ferment fully before the batter is mixed, because the gas it produces is what lifts the heavy fruited dough. An under-fermented sponge leaves the cake dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, lemon, orange, nutmeg. 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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