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Dessert

Dough Cake

A sweet cake made with dough, currants, sugar, butter, candied peel, and optional mixed spice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Dough Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place ½ quart of dough in a basin.

  2. Wash and dry 1 cup of currants, then pick over to remove any stones.

  3. Add the currants, ½ cup of sugar, and 1 oz. of finely chopped candied peel to the dough. Optionally, add ½ teaspoon of mixed spice.

Mix and bake

  1. Break 1 egg into the basin, add 2 oz. of butter, and mix all ingredients well.

  2. Grease a tin thoroughly with dripping.

  3. Pour the mixture into the greased tin.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

  5. Turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side against a plate.

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. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Dough
Forms the base of the cake, giving it its bulk and structure.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat, which contributes richness and a tender crumb.
Currants
Add fruit flavour and sweet, chewy pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking until a knife comes out clean. Baking time depends on the oven and tin, so the centre can stay wet if the cake is removed too early. The knife test shows whether the centre has set, which keeps the crumb from being gummy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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