Name: Very Good Common Plum Cakes
Ingredients: 5 ounces butter; 3 pounds all-purpose flour; 5 ounces fine sugar; 6 ounces currants, washed and dried; 1 teaspoon ground allspice; 3 teaspoons yeast; 2 cups warm milk

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 ↓

Very Good Common Plum Cakes

12 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

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Mix in the flour and currants.
Add the ground allspice.
Dissolve the yeast in warm milk and combine with the mixture to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

Shape the dough into 12 cakes.
Place on a floured baking sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,302 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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 the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the dough as it binds with the liquid.
Fine sugar: Creamed with the butter and adds sweetness and browning.
Currants: Add fruit flavour and chewy pieces throughout the cakes.
Yeast: Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Warm milk: Hydrates the flour and yeast to form the dough and softens its texture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the yeast in warm milk. Yeast needs warm liquid to become active; if the milk is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it is cold the dough will rise slowly or not at all.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, allspice, 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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Very Good Common Plum Cakes