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Dessert

Cake, Plum

A buttery cake with currants, candied lemon peel, sweet almonds, and flour baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour 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 ↓

Cake, Plum

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and treacle, and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Mix in the warm milk until combined.

  5. Gently fold in the currants, candied lemon peel, sweet almonds, and flour without overmixing.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for at least 4 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. Almond + flourtop 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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 and give a rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the fruit and sets the cake's crumb.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown during the long bake.
Currants
Supply the fruit bulk and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the currants, peel, almonds and flour. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the crumb. Folding gently keeps the batter light and stops the heavy fruit from sinking to the bottom.

Swap the currant

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

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

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