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Dessert

To Make Bread Dough Cake

A sweet bread dough cake made with dripping, sugar, currants, spices, and treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Make Bread Dough 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, work the dripping into the dough until well combined.

  2. Add the sugar, currants, mixed spice, and candy peel, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Dissolve the treacle in the warm milk and add to the mixture, combining well.

Rise and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered cake tin.

  2. Let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Currant + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,817 recipes
  5. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Dough
Provides the base structure and yeasted lift for the cake.
Dripping
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb and moistness.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Currants
Provide fruit pieces, sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Treacle
Adds deep sweetness, color and a moist, slightly sticky texture.

The step that matters

Rising in a warm place. Yeast activity depends on warmth; if the dough is too cold it will rise slowly or not at all, leaving a dense cake. Keep it warm and rising before it goes into the oven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, 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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