Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓
Plum Cake
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the flour.
Rub in the butter until well combined.
Add the sugar, raisins, currants, and beaten eggs.
Mix everything together with the sour buttermilk.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a buttered tin mold.
Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Reacts with the sour buttermilk to produce carbon dioxide, helping the cake rise.
- Butter
- Coats flour particles and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set.
- Sour buttermilk
- Adds acidity to activate the soda and contributes moisture and tenderness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown during baking.
The step that matters
Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the flour. Bicarbonate of soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Here the sour buttermilk supplies it, so the soda must be evenly dispersed in the flour first to avoid pockets of bitter soda and uneven rising.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, sugar, butter, buttermilk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, butter, buttermilk, egg. 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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