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Dessert

Sultana Cake

A moist cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, sultanas, candied peel, almonds, lemon rind, baking powder, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Sultana Cake

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sultana Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pour the batter into a greased and lined cake tin.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then add the sugar and mix well.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  4. Fold in the chopped candied peel, sultanas, baking powder, lemon rind, salt, and milk.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle the shredded almonds on top.

  2. Bake for about 1.5 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamy texture when beaten with butter.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating well after each egg lets the mixture emulsify. Adding them all at once can cause curdling, which may make the cake dense or uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, almond, butter, egg, 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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