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Dessert

Cup Cake

A small cake made with flour, sugar, currants, sultanas, candied peel, milk, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cup Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the sugar and eggs.

  3. Mix the cream of tartar with the milk.

  4. Stir in the baking soda until it froths.

  5. Combine the milk mixture with the butter mixture.

  6. Gradually stir in the flour.

  7. Add the currants, sultanas, and candied peel. Mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered tin.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour or until done.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to create lift.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda until it froths. Baking soda and cream of tartar react as soon as they meet moisture, releasing gas. Mixing them in promptly and getting the batter into the oven without delay keeps that lift from being lost.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More cup cake recipes

White 14Coconut 8Ginger 5Fruit 4New York 4Molasses 3 See all 67 →

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