Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Christmas Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Sift the baking powder and flour onto a sheet of paper to mix well.
Soften the butter and sugar in a clean pan over the fire.
Weigh the fruit onto the flour, ensuring they are cleaned and free from stalks and stones.
Cut the candied peel into thin shreds and add it to the fruit and flour.
Break the eggs into a clean bowl and beat them.
Make the batter
Cream the softened butter and sugar by hand, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the flour and fruit mixture, then moisten with milk to achieve a cake batter consistency.
Bake
Bake in well-greased and lined round or square tins at 300 °F (150 °C) for about 3 to 4 hours.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Castor sugar
- Creams with butter to aid aeration and adds sweetness and browning.
- Sultanas
- Add moisture, sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Bake low and slow. Baking at a low temperature for a long time lets the large batter cook through evenly before the outside over-browns. Rushing with high heat can leave the centre raw or the crust burnt.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk. 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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