Name: Plain Pound Ob Currant Cake
Ingredients: 10 eggs; 1 pound sugar; 1 pound flour; 1 pound butter; 1 pound currants; candied peel (to taste); ⅓ cup brandy (optional); 3 ounces caraway seeds (optional)

Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Pound Ob Currant 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.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream the butter in a large bowl.
Add the sugar to the creamed butter and mix well.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and then stir them into the butter and sugar mixture.
Gently fold in the egg whites until combined.
Add the currants and candied peel, mixing lightly.
Gradually add the flour, stirring until just combined.
If desired, stir in the brandy.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake for nearly 2 hours, or 1 hour for half the quantity.

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.

Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Eggs: Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whites lighten it and add structure as the cake sets.
Butter: Fat coats flour particles and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep a soft texture.
Flour: Its proteins form the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Currants: Add sweetness, moisture and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Stir only until the flour is just combined. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense.

Swap the caraway

The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, butter, currant, brandy):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Carawaythe original
Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, butter, currant, brandy. 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.