Skip to main content
Dessert

Rich Yeast Cake

A yeasted cake with currants, candied lemon and orange peel, and spices.

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

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Rich Yeast 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 sponge

  1. Mix flour, sugar, milk, and yeast to prepare a sponge.

  2. Let the sponge sit until bubbly.

Mix the batter

  1. Combine the sponge with softened butter, currants, candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix until well combined.

  2. Grease a cake hoop.

  3. Pour the batter into the hoop.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

  2. Optionally, ice and decorate as desired.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the cake rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and feeds the yeast during the sponge stage.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the sponge sit until bubbly. The yeast needs time to ferment the sponge. Underproofed sponge gives a dense cake that does not rise well, while the gas it produces lifts the batter.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, butter, lemon, orange, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, lemon, orange, 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

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes