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Dessert

Bread, Scones and Cakes

A currant cake made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Bread, Scones and Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter.

  3. Add sugar and currants.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix in the milk in another bowl.

  5. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture and stir gently with a fork.

  6. Pour the batter into a cake tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 hours, avoiding opening the oven door for the first 20 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, moisture and richness as they set.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a tender, soft crumb.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stir the wet and dry mixtures gently. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stirring just until combined keeps the crumb tender and light.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, 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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