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Dessert

Plum Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, currants, raisins, spices, butter, wine, eggs, yeast, and candied citrus, finished with a sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour and sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Add the currants, raisins, mace, cloves, Jamaica peppers, nutmeg, lemon peel, and almonds, then mix the dry ingredients well.

  3. Melt the butter in the cream.

  4. Add the sweet wine, brandy, and beaten eggs, then mix the wet ingredients thoroughly.

  5. Gradually strain the liquid into the dry ingredients, beating for one hour.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake pan.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan.

  3. Add the citron, lemon, and orange candy.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Ice and finish

  1. Mix the sifted sugar with egg white and a little orange-flower water for the icing, then whisk the icing for about an hour.

  2. Pour the icing over the baked cake.

  3. Return the cake to the oven for 15 minutes.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, with beaten whites and yolks giving lift and a firm crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and soften during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually strain the liquid into the dry ingredients. Adding the wet mixture slowly while beating keeps lumps from forming and helps the batter blend evenly, so the cake bakes with a uniform crumb.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, mace, clove, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, mace, clove, pepper, nutmeg. 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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