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Dessert

Malaga Cake

A sweet cake with raisins, hickorynut meats, figs or citron, topped with a sugar syrup frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Malaga Cake

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, stirring until combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a square baking tin and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the frosting

  1. Boil 1½ cups sugar and 3 tablespoons water until it forms threads.

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy and gradually add the sugar syrup.

Finish the cake

  1. Fold in the chopped raisins, hickorynut meats, and figs or citron.

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 + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  4. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add moisture, richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Raisins
Add chewiness and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar syrup to threads, then add it gradually to the whites. The syrup must reach the right concentration to set the frosting. Adding it slowly to the beaten egg whites lets them keep their foam and become smooth and stable instead of deflating or turning grainy.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits less well

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