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Dessert

Economical Sultana Cake

A simple sultana cake made with flour, sultanas, butter, milk, sugar, egg, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Economical Sultana 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 dry mix

  1. Mix the flour and baking powder together and sift into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter.

  3. Add the sugar.

  4. Rinse the sultanas.

  5. Sprinkle the sultanas with a little flour.

  6. Rub the sultanas gently to remove dirt and stalks.

  7. Add the cleaned sultanas and candied peel to the dry ingredients.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg.

  2. Mix the beaten egg with most of the milk.

  3. Combine the wet mixture with the dry ingredients to form a stiff dough.

  4. Add more milk if necessary to reach a stiff dough.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased cake tin lined with buttered paper.

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

  3. Remove the cake from the tin.

  4. Take off the paper.

  5. Cool the cake on a wire rack.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sultanas
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and forms a workable dough.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the dough. Too much milk makes the dough slack and the cake heavy and dense, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly. Add it gradually until the dough is stiff but holds together.

“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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