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Dessert

Yorkshire Yule Cakes

A yeasted sweet cake with currants, raisins, spices, and candied lemon, baked into decorative cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Yorkshire Yule Cakes

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 dough

  1. Mix sugar and flour in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve yeast in milk, then add to the mixture along with melted butter.

  3. Knead into dough.

  4. Let rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

  5. Fold in currants, raisins, nutmeg, cinnamon, and candied lemon until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape dough into cakes.

  2. Mark tops with a decorative pattern.

  3. Sift sugar over cakes.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine dry flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cakes together.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dough and softens its texture.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chew throughout the cakes.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chew throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise. The yeast needs a warm, sufficient rise time to produce gas and lighten the dough. Under-proofing leaves the cakes dense, while the warm spot keeps fermentation steady.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, milk, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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