Name: Quick Cake
Ingredients: ⅓ cup soft butter; 1⅓ cups brown sugar; ½ cup milk; 1⅓ cups flour; 2 eggs; 3 tablespoons baking powder; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 1 cup raisins, stoned and chopped

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 ↓

Quick Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins.
Beat all ingredients together for three minutes.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 35 to 40 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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become light.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavour.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits about as well
Raisinthe original
Figfits less well
Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg, cinnamon, 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.