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Dessert

New Haven Commencement Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, currants, nutmeg, and cinnamon, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

New Haven Commencement Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix sugar, butter, flour, yeast, nutmeg, cinnamon, and eggs.

  2. Cover and let the mixture rise overnight.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. In the morning, add baking soda, chopped raisins, and chopped currants.

  2. Let the batter stand for 1 hour before baking.

  3. Optionally, add vinegar or melted currant jelly for improved flavor.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake until golden.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and a rich flavor to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Yeast
Leavens the batter during the overnight rise, giving it lift.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar or currant jelly to produce gas and lift the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. If it is added without the acidic vinegar or currant jelly, or left too long before baking, it loses its lifting power and the cake may be dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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