Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Plain Lunch Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.
Add the sugar, baking soda, raisins, candied peel or currants, egg, and sweet milk, then mix all ingredients well.
Bake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Pour the batter into a prepared cake tin and bake immediately.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 structure that the batter sets around as it bakes.
- Butter
- Coats the flour and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
- Baking soda
- Releases gas as it reacts in the wet batter, helping the cake rise.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Sultana raisins
- Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Bake immediately after mixing. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it becomes wet. If the batter waits before going into the oven, some of the gas escapes, and the cake may rise less and have a denser crumb.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, milk. 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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