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Dessert

Rich Currant Cake

A buttery currant cake made with butter, sugar, flour, currants, candied peel, eggs, spices, and rum or brandy.

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

Rich Currant 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 batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs one or two at a time, mixing slowly to prevent curdling.

  3. Once thoroughly beaten, add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for two to three hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter bakes and sets.
Currants
Add fruitiness and moisture, and their sugars help the cake brown.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps it hold air.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs gradually. Eggs added too quickly can break the emulsion of butter and sugar, causing curdling. Adding them one or two at a time and mixing slowly keeps the batter smooth and able to hold air.

Swap the currant

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

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

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