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Dessert

The Devon Lunch Cake

A sweet cake with raisins, currants, sultanas, candied peel, and butter, baked at 350°F.

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 ↓

The Devon Lunch 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. Dissolve the baking powder in the milk.

  2. Clean the raisins, currants, and sultanas.

  3. Stir the raisins, currants, and sultanas.

  4. Cut the candied peel into small dice.

  5. Mix the flour with the butter.

  6. Beat the eggs, yolks and whites separately.

Make the cake

  1. Add the sugar, fruit, essence, and milk.

  2. Mix all ingredients well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin.

  4. Bake for 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewiness and moisture through the cake.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs, yolks and whites separately. Whipping the whites separately and folding them in keeps air in the batter, which helps the cake rise and stay light. Over-mixing after folding can knock that air out.

Swap the currant

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

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

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