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 ↓
Christmas Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift the baking powder 2 or 3 times with the flour onto a sheet of paper to mix well.
Soften the butter and sugar in a clean pan in front of the fire.
Weigh the fruit onto the flour, ensuring they are cleaned and free from stalks and stones.
Cut the peel into thin shreds and add it to the fruit and flour.
Make the batter
Break the eggs into a clean bowl and beat the butter and sugar into a cream with your hand.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Once all eggs are added, mix in the flour and fruit, then moisten with milk to achieve a cake batter consistency.
Bake
Bake in round or square well-greased and lined tins.
Bake for 3 to 4 hours.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes and sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
- Sultanas
- Add moisture and sweetness throughout the cake.
- Castor sugar
- Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
The step that matters
Beating the eggs in one at a time. Adding eggs gradually and beating well after each lets the emulsion form and hold air. Adding them too fast can curdle the batter, which can make the cake heavy.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, 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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