Skip to main content
Dessert

Christmas Cake

A fruit-filled cake baked for Christmas, made with butter, sugar, currants, raisins, candied peel, almonds, eggs, flour, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Christmas 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. Blanch the almonds and chop them.

  2. Shred the candied peel.

  3. Clean the currants.

  4. Seed the raisins.

  5. Line a cake tin with paper.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Add the currants, raisins, candied peel, and chopped almonds.

  4. Mix in the flour and baking powder last.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 5 to 6 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. Raisin + flourtop 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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Builds the cake's structure as the batter sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Mix in the flour and baking powder last. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Folding gently keeps the crumb tender while the baking powder still lifts the batter.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More christmas cake recipes

Black 61German 4Plain 3 See all 54 →

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipes