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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A rich fruitcake made with butter, sugar, dried fruit, spices, and flour, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Christmas 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.

Prepare

  1. Stone raisins, clean currants and sultanas, shred mixed peel, sift flour with spices.

  2. Blanch and slice almonds if using.

  3. Line a greased cake tin with double paper.

Make the batter

  1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Gently stir in fruit and flour mixture.

  4. If using almonds, stir in half with fruit and sprinkle rest on top before baking.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 3 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 light, tender crumb.
Caster sugar
Creamed with butter to build air bubbles and add sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating well after each egg keeps the creamed butter and sugar emulsified. If the mixture curdles, the batter can turn heavy and the cake may be dense.

“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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