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Dessert

Raised Cake

A sweet raised cake made with raisins, currants, and spices, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Raised Cake

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Raised 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. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Stir in the bread sponge and sweet milk.

  4. Add baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins and currants.

  6. Add flour until the mixture is as thick as fruit cake.

Bake

  1. Pour into a baking pan and bake immediately at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Bread sponge
Ferments to add rise and a slightly tangy flavour to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sponge to lift the batter as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the finished cake.
Currants
Add tart, chewy fruit pieces and moisture throughout the cake.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sponge, so the batter should go into the oven right away to keep its rising power.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, bread, milk, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, bread, milk, clove, cinnamon. 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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