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Dessert

A Thanksgiving Cake

A yeast-based cake with butter, milk, flour, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, spices, and brandy, baked slowly and frosted with boiled white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

A Thanksgiving Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Mix the flour, milk, and half the butter with the yeast and let it rise overnight.

  2. The next morning, add the remaining ingredients except for the fruit and let the dough rise for another 3 hours.

Fill the pans

  1. Use a skimmer to lift the dough into buttered cake pans, adding the mixed fruit as you go.

  2. Let the filled pans rise for 30 minutes.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

  2. Frost with a boiled white icing.

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 + nutmegtop 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen dough and cake crumb together.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it a light texture.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and yeast to form the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise overnight and for 3 hours. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and develop the gluten network. Rising too briefly leaves a dense cake, while rising too long can weaken the structure so it collapses or turns coarse.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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