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Dessert

A Rich Cake

A rich cake made with currants, almonds, spices, sherry, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Rich Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Work the butter to a cream in a large bowl.

  3. Add the sugar to the creamed butter and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg yolks until well combined and strain them through a sieve.

  5. Gradually add the egg yolks to the butter and sugar mixture, mixing thoroughly.

  6. Incorporate the currants, flour, almonds, and spices into the mixture.

  7. Finally, add the sack, brandy, and sweetmeats, mixing until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify with the butter, helping bind and set the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed base for the batter.
Currants
Add fruitiness and moisture, studding the cake with chewy pockets of fruit.
Blanched almonds
Add body, nutty flavour and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air in the fat, which gives the cake lift and a fine, tender crumb. Under-creamed butter leads to a dense cake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, flour, butter, almond, orange, egg, sugar. 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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