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Dessert

A French Cake

A French cake made with flour, chocolate, raisins, butter, Marasquino liqueur, almonds, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

A French Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a paste with the flour, chocolate, raisins, butter, Marasquino, almonds, and eggs.

  2. Mix with a well-risen sponge made from 2 pounds of sifted flour.

  3. Place the mixture into a hoop and set it in a warm place for 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tender texture and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake's crumb.
Almonds
Add body and nutty flavor to the paste.
Raisins
Add moisture and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Warm rising time before baking. The sponge must be well risen and the mixture kept in a warm place for the full hour so the batter can expand and lighten. Under-proofed batter bakes dense, while the eggs and flour set during the long bake.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, chocolate, butter, almond, egg):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, chocolate, butter, almond, 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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