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Dessert

Tumbler Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, treacle, milk, flour, eggs, spices, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Tumbler 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the treacle and milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  6. Fold in the eggs, raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 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.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavour through the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic treacle and cream of tartar to lift the batter and help it rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, along with a deep molasses flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and stirring only until combined keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough. Overmixing also knocks air out of the creamed butter and sugar.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, flour, egg, cream. 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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