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Dessert

Sultana Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, sultanas, candied peel, baking powder, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Sultana Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter.

  3. Stir in the sugar, sultanas, candied peel, and baking powder.

  4. Beat the eggs and milk together, then strain into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Bake and cool

  1. Butter a cake tin well, pour in the batter, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for two hours.

  2. Carefully turn out of the tin and place on a wire rack until cool.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay moist.
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.
Sultanas
Add chewy sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Straining the egg and milk into the dry ingredients. Mixing thoroughly helps the batter combine evenly, while the baking powder begins releasing gas, so the batter should go into the tin and oven promptly to keep the rise even.

“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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