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 ↓
To Prepare Raisins for Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the raisins
Remove all stems and seeds from the raisins.
Place the raisins in a dish and cover them with enough water.
Boil the raisins slowly for 30 minutes or until the water is nearly gone.
Add to the cake
Stir the prepared raisins into your cake batter as usual.
Alternatively, wash the raisins and spread them on a towel in a pan to dry thoroughly.
Before adding to the cake or pudding, roll the raisins in flour.
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.
-
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 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
- Raisins
- Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the cake.
- Flour
- Coats the raisins so they are less likely to sink to the bottom of the batter.
The step that matters
Boil the raisins slowly until the water is nearly gone. Softening the raisins in water plumps them so they stay moist in the baked cake. Boiling gently prevents the skins from splitting and the fruit from scorching.
“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
Green Corn Pudding64 recipes
Cornmeal mush12 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.