Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Spice Cake
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and line a cake tin with thick paper.
Clean the currants and sultanas by rubbing them on a sieve with a little flour and removing all stalks.
Chop the peel finely and sift the flour with the baking powder.
Make the cake
Cream the butter and sugar until soft, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in the fruit and spice, then fold in the sifted flour.
Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 1.5 hours.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Creaming it with sugar traps air, giving the cake a soft, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
- Currants
- Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the crumb.
- Sultanas
- Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the crumb.
The step that matters
Cream the butter and sugar until soft, then add the eggs one at a time. Creaming beats air into the fat, and adding eggs gradually keeps the emulsion stable. If the eggs go in too fast, the batter can curdle and trap less air, leading to a denser cake.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour. 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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