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Dessert

Dundee Cake

A Scottish fruit cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, currants, raisins, almonds, nutmeg, vanilla, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

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

Make the batter

  1. Rub the sugar and butter together until creamy.

  2. Add the eggs two at a time, beating for 3 to 4 minutes between each addition.

  3. Mix all other ingredients together in a separate bowl.

  4. Combine the mixed ingredients with the sugar, butter, and eggs, and mix firmly.

Bake

  1. Line a shallow tin with greased paper and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for about 1 ½ 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture when creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with the butter.
Hungarian flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Pounded jordan almonds
Add nutty flavour and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs two at a time. Adding eggs gradually, with beating between additions, lets each addition emulsify into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too quickly can cause the batter to curdle or split.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour, raisin, nutmeg, vanilla. 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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