Why it works: Plum and milk work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 406 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Plum Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
In a bowl, combine 1 pound of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Rub ¼ pound of clarified dripping into the flour until no lumps remain.
Add ½ pound of plums or currants (washed, dried, and pitted if using plums) to the flour mixture.
Cut 2 ounces of candied peel into small pieces and add to the bowl, along with ¼ pound of sugar.
In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg with ½ cup of milk.
Stir the egg and milk mixture into the dry ingredients until well combined.
Bake and serve
Grease a tin with dripping.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Once baked, turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side against a plate.
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.
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Plum + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together406 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main structure of the cake as the bulk of the batter.
- Clarified dripping
- Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
- Plums or currants
- Add fruit moisture and sweetness throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg and milk. Once the liquid meets the flour, overmixing develops gluten and can make the cake tough. Stir only until the ingredients are just combined so the crumb stays tender.
Swap the plum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Plumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, milk. 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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