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Dessert

Yeast Cake

A yeast-leavened cake made with flour, currants, butter, sugar, citron, candied orange peel, spices, wine, milk, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Yeast 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 the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, currants, butter, sugar, citron, orange peel, cinnamon, and mace.

  2. Make a cavity in the center and add sweet wine, warm milk, and yeast.

  3. Let the mixture stand until the yeast activates.

  4. Add a little more warm milk and mix until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a hoop and let it rise until doubled in size.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Forms the structure that holds the dough together as it rises and bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness.
Currants
Provide pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the yeast activate before mixing further. Yeast needs time in warm liquid to become active; if it has not foamed, the dough will not rise properly, leaving a dense cake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, currant, butter, sugar, orange, cinnamon, wine):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, currant, butter, sugar, orange, cinnamon, wine. 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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