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Dessert

Federal Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, Port wine, flour, baking soda, eggs, nutmeg, raisins, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Federal Cake

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 ↓

Federal Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the sugar and butter together for at least 30 minutes until fine and grainy.

  3. Add the grated nutmeg and the yolks of the eggs, beaten until thick and light colored. Mix well.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour and the sweet milk mixed with the dissolved baking soda, alternating between the two.

  5. Fold in the Port wine, raisins, and citron.

  6. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake in a cool oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps build the aerated structure and adds sweetness.
Pastry flour
Its gentle protein content sets the cake's structure while keeping it tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic components in the batter to produce gas that helps it rise.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites must be stiff but not overbeaten, and folded gently so the air they hold is not lost, which would leave the cake dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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