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Dessert

Madeira Cake

A light, buttery cake flavored with citron peel, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Madeira 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Sift the flour and gently fold it into the mixture, adding the water gradually.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  3. When the cake is half cooked, place the citron peel on top.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Castor sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness and browning.
Self-raising flour
Provides the structure of the cake once gently folded into the batter.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture, and help bind the batter as it sets.
Citron peel
Adds a bright, aromatic citrus flavour to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the butter and eggs. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake dense and tough.

“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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