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Dessert

A Good Light Luncheon-cake

A yeast-based cake with butter, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, nutmeg, and candied citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

A Good Light Luncheon-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Break down the butter into the flour and work it into crumbs gently.

  2. Mix in the salt and powdered sugar.

  3. Hollow the center and stir in the yeast diluted with warm milk.

  4. Mix enough surrounding flour to form a thick batter.

  5. Cover with a cloth and let it rise until very light, about 1 to 1.5 hours.

  6. Once risen, add the eggs and enough nearly boiling milk to warm them.

  7. Mix well with the other ingredients, then gradually beat in the additional powdered sugar and nutmeg.

  8. Cut the candied citron thin and mix it in evenly.

  9. Let it rise again for about 45 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour into a well-buttered tin or pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for at least 1 hour and 10 minutes without moving it until set.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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 of the dough and absorbs the liquid to make it hold together.
Yeast
Ferments and produces gas, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture and warmth to activate the yeast and bind the dough.
Candied citron
Adds sweet, aromatic flavor and bits of fruit throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until very light. Yeast gas expansion gives the cake its lightness. If the dough is under-proofed it stays dense, and the second rise needs enough time for the yeast to build volume before baking.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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

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