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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A rich, moist cake made with eggs, butter, flour, dried fruit, sugar, almonds, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the currants, raisins, sultanas, mixed peel, and chopped almonds.

  6. Stir in the brandy until evenly distributed.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Flour + raisintop 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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 tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Brown sugar
Creams with the butter to aid aeration and adds moisture and molasses flavour.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually and mixing well after each addition keeps the batter emulsified. If the eggs are dumped in at once, the batter can curdle and trap less air, leading to a denser cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, raisin, sugar, almond, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, raisin, sugar, almond, brandy. 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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