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Dessert

Twelfth Night Cake

A butter and sugar cake with lemon, raisins, caraway seeds, and a white frosting, decorated with candied cherries, angelica, and holly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Twelfth Night Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and mix

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and gradually mix them into the creamed butter and sugar.

  3. Add the milk alternately with the flour mixed with baking powder.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  5. Stir in the lemon rind, lemon juice, raisins, and caraway seeds.

  6. Prepare a round pan with a tube in the center by lining it with buttered paper.

  7. Roll silver pieces in thin white paper and then in flour; place them in opposite sides of the cake batter.

Bake and decorate

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until done.

  2. Once cooled, ice the cake with thick white frosting and decorate with candied cherries and angelica.

  3. Surround the cake with holly and place a piece in the center.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of moisture and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in, while vigorous stirring would deflate the batter and produce a dense cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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