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Dessert

Canadian Cakes

A sweet baked cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, brandy, flour, orange flower water, currants, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Canadian Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, butter, brandy, flour, orange flower water, currants, and grated lemon rind until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-greased shallow tin, about half an inch thick.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  2. Let cool, then ice and cut into squares or diamonds.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Orange + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 as they set during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking too long dries out the cake, while too short leaves the centre wet and unset. Watching for golden colour and a set centre helps the cake keep its moisture and texture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, brandy, flour, orange, lemon. 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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