Skip to main content
Dessert

A Magnificent Christmas Cake

A rich fruit cake made with flour, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, butter, eggs, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Magnificent Christmas 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

  3. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light.

  4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the milk, then add the flour mixture gradually.

  6. Fold in raisins, currants, and citron.

  7. Add lemon, nutmeg, allspice, and salt to taste.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 4 to 5 hours until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Let cool, then ice and decorate with holly.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Long, low baking until a toothpick comes out clean. With a dense batter full of fruit, the centre sets slowly. Pulling the cake too early leaves it gummy, while the low oven heat helps it cook through without scorching the outside.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes