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Dessert

Brunswick Cakes

A sweet cake with currants, cinnamon, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brunswick Cakes

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter, sugar, and eggs together, beating in the eggs one at a time.

  2. Sift in the flour, carbonate of soda, cream of tartar, and cinnamon.

  3. Add the currants and mix well with a wooden spoon, incorporating the milk.

Bake and finish

  1. Shape the mixture into rounds and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Ice the tops when ready.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the carbonate of soda to lift the cakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too quickly can cause the mixture to split, which can make the cakes coarse and dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, cream, cinnamon, 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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