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Dessert

Tipsy Cake

A layered sponge cake soaked in raisin wine, jam, custard, and topped with candied cherries and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Tipsy Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the layers

  1. Soak the sponge cakes in a little raisin wine.

  2. Arrange the soaked sponge cakes in a deep glass dish in four layers.

  3. Spread a little jam on each layer.

Finish and decorate

  1. Pour the custard around the layers.

  2. Decorate the top with candied cherries and split almonds.

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

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

  2. Raisin + winetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Wine + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,260 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

Sponge cakes
Soaked with wine, they form the soft, absorbent body of the dessert.
Raisin wine
Soaks into the sponge cakes, adding moisture and a boozy flavour.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour between the layers and helps bind them.
Custard
Poured around the layers, it adds creamy moisture and richness.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, wine):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, 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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