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Dessert

School Cake

A yeasted cake with currants, candied peel, allspice, lemon rind, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,083 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

School Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix together the flour and sugar.

  2. Make a hollow in the center.

  3. Add the yeast and warmed milk.

  4. Knead well.

  5. Let rise in a warm place.

  6. Dissolve the butter in a little warm milk.

  7. Mix the dissolved butter with the risen dough.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Wash and dry the currants.

  2. Chop the candied peel.

  3. Add the currants, candied peel, allspice, and lemon rind to the dough.

  4. Mix thoroughly.

  5. Place the dough in a buttered tin.

  6. Let rise again.

  7. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 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 that holds the cake's rise and crumb together.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, lifting the dough during each rise.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Currants
Provide chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Let rise in a warm place. Yeast works fastest in warmth, so the dough needs to rise fully before shaping. A cool spot slows fermentation and leaves the cake dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, butter, allspice, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, allspice, 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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