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Dessert

A Large Rich Currant Cake

A large cake made with butter, eggs, powdered sugar, spices, brandy, nuts, citrus peel, almonds, flour, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Large Rich Currant Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large copper basin, cream the butter with your hand until smooth.

  2. In another large pan, whisk the eggs for 10 minutes, then add the powdered sugar.

  3. Whisk the egg mixture over low heat until warm, then cool it down.

  4. Mix the cooled egg mixture with the creamed butter by hand.

  5. Add the mace, cinnamon, brandy, Noyau, lemon peel, orange peel, and shredded almonds, and mix well.

  6. Gradually fold in the flour and currants until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Prepare a hoop lined with 4 sheets of paper inside and 6 at the bottom.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven until a skewer inserted 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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
Creamed with the sugar base to give a rich, tender crumb and fat flavour.
Eggs
Whisked and warmed to bind the batter and add structure and lift.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a fine, smooth texture when creamed.
Fine flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Currants
Add fruity sweetness and moist pockets throughout the cake.
Sweet almonds
Add texture and nutty richness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually fold in the flour and currants. Adding flour gently keeps the batter light; overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Currants should be dry so they do not sink or release moisture into the batter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, brandy, lemon, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, brandy, lemon, orange. 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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