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Dessert

Plum Cake

A fruit cake made with butter, sugar, raisins, candied peel, almonds, spices, flour, eggs, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum 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. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add sifted sugar, then stoned raisins, chopped candied peel, and pounded almonds.

  3. Mix in ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and flour.

  4. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the brandy and a little milk.

  5. Stir in the well-beaten egg whites.

  6. Combine all ingredients and mix for half an hour.

Bake

  1. Pour into a cake tin lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed butter gives the cake its rich, tender crumb and fat-based flavour.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, while whites lighten it and help set the structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter hold air when creamed, aiding texture and browning.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and a moist, tender texture from their oils.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the batter.

The step that matters

Stir in the well-beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that lightens the batter. Folding them in gently keeps that air, so the cake rises evenly instead of turning dense.

“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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