Skip to main content
Dessert

Rich Plum Cake

A dense cake made with powdered sugar, butter, flour, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rich Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in half of the flour.

  4. Add the spices.

  5. Fold in the whipped egg whites alternately with the remaining flour.

  6. Finally, mix in the brandy.

Bake

  1. Line deep cake tins with well-buttered paper.

  2. Pour in the mixture.

  3. Bake for at least 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites lighten the crumb, helping it rise.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a rich, tender texture.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the creamed butter hold air.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and moisture, softening as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that lifts the batter. Folding gently and alternating with flour keeps that air from collapsing, so the cake stays light rather than dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes