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Dessert

Baba Cake

A yeast-leavened cake with butter, eggs, raisins, currants, candied peels, and wine, baked slowly at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Baba Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the starter

  1. Sift 4 lb of flour onto a marble slab.

  2. In a basin, mix 1/4 of the flour with 1 oz of dissolved yeast and 1 teacup of warm water. Add more water if needed to form a stiff paste.

  3. Shape the mixture into a ball, score a cross on top, and let it rise in a warm place for about 10 minutes.

Make the dough

  1. Make a cavity in the remaining flour.

  2. Add 2½ lb of warmed butter, 1 oz of salt, ½ teacup of water, and 15 eggs. Mix well to form a soft paste.

  3. After 5 minutes, add 6 more eggs one at a time, mixing lightly for 10 minutes. Sprinkle in 1 teaspoon of powdered saffron and mix.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Soak 4 oz of Smyrna raisins, 8 oz of Malaga raisins, 4 oz of currants, and mixed candied peels in 1 breakfast cup of Madeira wine and 3⅓ cups of brandy or rum for a few minutes.

  2. Incorporate the soaked ingredients into the paste gently and let it rest for a few minutes.

  3. Prepare a well-buttered mold with a strip of paper above the rim. Fill the mold with the mixture to about ¾ full.

  4. Let it rise until it reaches the top of the mold.

  5. Bake in a slack oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Saffron + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Forms the structure of the cake once it is mixed with liquid and eggs.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and lift to the soft paste as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
German yeast
Makes the dough rise by producing gas as it ferments.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise to the top of the mold. Yeast dough needs enough time to expand fully before baking. Underproofed dough can bake dense, while a slack oven helps the rich batter set through without over-browning.

Swap the saffron

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, raisin, currant, madeira wine, 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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