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Dessert

Christmas Cake

A rich, spiced cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, molasses, dried fruit, candied peel, almonds, and brandy.

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 ↓

Christmas Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately until very light.

  3. Gradually add the flour to the butter and sugar mixture, alternating with the egg yolks and whites.

  4. Stir in the ground mace, ground cinnamon, and molasses.

  5. Gently fold in the chopped raisins, currants, citron, pounded almonds, candied orange peel, and candied lemon peel.

  6. Add the brandy and mix lightly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for four hours.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift when the whites are beaten separately and folded in.
All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's main structure as it sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that promotes browning.
Almonds
Add richness, body, and a nutty flavor to the crumb.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the egg yolks and whites separately. Whipping the whites until very light traps air that helps the cake rise. Folding them in gently keeps that air in the batter, so the cake stays light despite its heavy fruit and nut load.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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