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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, sugar, mixed peel, raisins, currants, sultanas, almonds, eggs, allspice, mixed spice, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Christmas 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

  1. Stone the raisins.

  2. Clean the currants and sultanas.

  3. Shred the mixed peel.

  4. Sift the flour with the spices.

  5. Blanch the almonds if using. Slice the almonds if using.

  6. Line a greased cake tin with double paper.

Make and bake the cake

  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. Gently stir in the fruit and flour mixture.

  4. Stir in half of the almonds with the fruit.

  5. Sprinkle the remaining almonds on top before baking.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 3½ 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the cake its structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once baked.
Castor sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness.
Currants
Add chewy fruit pieces and sweetness throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy fruit pieces and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which helps the cake rise and gives a tender crumb. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake.

“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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