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Dessert

Federal Cake

A spiced fruit cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, dried fruit, wine, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Federal Cake

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 ↓

Federal 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in cream or milk, baking soda, wine, and brandy.

  5. Gradually add flour, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in dried fruit and spices (cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg).

Bake

  1. Pour batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic wine and brandy to help the cake rise.
Dried fruit
Adds chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing only until combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, wine, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, wine, brandy. 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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