Skip to main content
Dessert

Another Plum-Cake

A yeasted plum cake with currants, raisins, brandy, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Another Plum-Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Warm the flour by placing it before the fire.

  2. Melt the butter in a sufficient quantity of milk.

  3. Beat the eggs well and mix with the yeast; strain the mixture.

  4. Add some of the warm milk and melted butter to the egg mixture.

  5. Combine the egg mixture with the flour and mix in the remaining milk and butter until stiff.

  6. Set the mixture before the fire for 1 hour to rise, covering it to keep out the air.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Once risen, add the currants, raisins, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar; mix well.

  2. Butter the baking pan and pour in the cake batter.

  3. Let it rise before the fire until it reaches the top of the pan.

  4. Bake in a properly heated oven.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as the dough sets.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise before baking.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise before the fire until it reaches the top of the pan. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce enough gas for the dough to expand. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while a covered rise keeps a skin from forming on the surface.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, egg, raisin, brandy, 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.

More plum cake recipes

Rich 19Pound 4 See all 152 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes