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Dessert

Madison Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, cream, eggs, flour, spices, currants, raisins, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Madison Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the cream and eggs, beaten until thick, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the flour, one pound at a time, until smooth.

  4. Incorporate the mace, nutmegs, currants, raisins, and dredged citron gently.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan lined with paper, smoothing the surface.

  2. Sprinkle with caster sugar and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done.

  3. Turn out and serve as needed.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure once mixed in, setting as the cake bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a creamy base when beaten with butter.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb of the cake.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the butter and sugar until creamy. Beating creates tiny air pockets that help the cake rise and keep a light texture. Under-beaten butter and sugar leave a dense, heavy cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, cream, egg, flour, mace, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, egg, flour, mace, nutmeg. 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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