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Dessert

Celia Thaxter Cake

A spiced raisin cake with cinnamon and cloves, baked at 350°F for about one hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Celia Thaxter Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk and baking soda.

  4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

Add the raisins and bake

  1. Toss the raisins in the ½ cup of flour.

  2. Fold the floured raisins into the batter along with the cinnamon and cloves.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about one hour.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 as the cake bakes and sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor to the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions helps keep the batter smooth and evenly combined. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

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