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Dessert

Nuts — Continued

A baked cake made with sugar, eggs, milk, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, raisins, and blanched nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Nuts — Continued

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 batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the sugar until light and frothy.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs and milk.

  3. Add the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda, mixing well.

  4. Quickly fold in the raisins and chopped nuts.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into well greased deep baking pans.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes.

  3. Turn out when done and serve cold.

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

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

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide gas with the acid, leavening the cake so it rises.
Raisins
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Nuts
Add fat, crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor to the crumb.

The step that matters

Quickly fold in the raisins and chopped nuts. Baking soda and cream of tartar start reacting as soon as they are wet, so the batter should go into the pans promptly. Overmixing after adding the flour develops gluten and can make the cake dense.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream, raisin):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream, raisin. 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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