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Dessert

Scotch Currant Run

A spiced cake made with flour, butter, raisins, currants, almonds, orange peel, and spices, baked for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Scotch Currant Run

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.

Make the paste

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

  2. Rub the flour and butter together in a bowl, then add the baking powder.

  3. Add enough water to form a firm paste.

  4. Roll out the paste thinly.

  5. Grease a cake tin.

  6. Line the tin with the paste.

  7. Reserve some paste for the top.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stone the raisins.

  2. Clean the currants.

  3. Blanch the almonds.

  4. Finely chop the orange peel.

  5. Combine the raisins, currants, almonds, orange peel, and all other ingredients in a basin.

  6. Add just enough milk to moisten the mixture.

  7. Mix thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the lined tin.

  2. Brush the edges of the paste with water.

  3. Cover with the reserved paste.

  4. Mark the top with a fork.

  5. Brush with egg or milk.

  6. Bake for about three 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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the paste tender and short.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and moisture to the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Add just enough milk to moisten the mixture.. Too much liquid makes the fruit filling wet and can leave the cake soggy, while too little leaves the filling dry and crumbly. The mixture should just hold together.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, almond, orange, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, almond, orange, ginger. 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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