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Dessert

Currant Teacake

A moist cake made with flour, currants, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, milk, eggs, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Currant Teacake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, vanilla, and melted butter.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.

  2. Fold in the currants.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure as gluten forms when the batter is mixed.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the cake structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the teacake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

The step that matters

Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing toughens the batter and can make the teacake dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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