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Dessert

Rich Currant Cake

A buttery cake with currants, almonds, citrus peel, spices, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rich Currant Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the grated nutmeg and ground mace with the sifted flour.

  2. Melt the butter and cream together, then let it cool before stirring into the flour.

  3. Combine the yeast with the beaten egg yolks and strain into the flour mixture.

  4. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well until combined.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake pan and line it with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and place it in the oven immediately.

  3. Once the cake rises and begins to color, cover the top with paper.

  4. Bake for nearly 3 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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the crumb feel soft and moist.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, contributing to a tender, custard-like crumb.
Fresh yeast
Leavens the batter so the cake rises before and during baking.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Egg whites
Add lift and structure when beaten, helping the cake rise and hold its shape.

The step that matters

Covering the top once the cake colors. Covering the top with paper once it begins to color shields it from direct heat, so the surface does not darken or burn before the long bake finishes cooking the centre.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, lemon, almond, rose, nutmeg. 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 currant cake recipes

Raisin 6Rich 5Lemon 3 See all 192 →

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