Name: A Nice Family Cake
Ingredients: 1½ cups all-purpose flour; 1 cup moist sugar; ¾ cup butter, softened; 1 cup currants; ⅓ cup white wine; ⅓ cup milk; 8 eggs; nutmeg to taste; lemon peel to taste

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 ↓

A Nice Family 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in white wine and milk.
Gradually add flour, mixing until just combined.
Fold in currants, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

Bake

Pour batter into greased cake pan.
Bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Butter: Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs: Add structure and richness as they set during baking, binding the batter together.
All-purpose flour: Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the cake its set structure.
Moist sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Currants: Add bursts of fruity sweetness and chew throughout the crumb.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma while contributing moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing flour only until just combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, white wine, milk, egg, nutmeg. 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.