Name: Little Plum Cake
Ingredients: ½ pound sugar, finely powdered; 2 pounds flour, dried; 4 yolks and 2 whites of eggs; ½ pound butter, washed with rose water; 6 tablespoons cream, warmed; 1½ pounds currants, picked and rubbed in a cloth

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Little Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

½ pound sugar, finely powdered
2 pounds flour, dried
4 yolks and 2 whites of eggs
½ pound butter, washed with rose water
6 tablespoons cream, warmed
1½ pounds currants, picked and rubbed in a cloth

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.
Add the eggs and cream, mixing until smooth.
Fold in the currants gently.

Bake and soak

Shape the mixture into cakes and place them in the oven.
Bake for 2 hours, until golden on both sides.
Remove the oven lid and let the cakes soak for a while.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Rose + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together494 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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: Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping the mixture bind and set.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the cakes tender and rich in texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the cake surface.
Cream: Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Currants: Add sweetness, fruity flavour and pockets of chewy texture.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Raspberryfits better
Currantthe original

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