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 ↓
Luncheon Cake
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Rub the baking powder and butter or dripping into the flour until fine.
Make the batter
Add the washed, picked, and dried currants, sugar, and thinly sliced candied peel; mix well.
Whisk the eggs and moisten the mixture with them and the milk to form a soft cake batter.
Bake
Grease a tin, pour the cake mixture into it, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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
- Butter or beef dripping
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour through the cake.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake once mixed with liquid and baked.
- Currants
- Provide the fruit bulk and sweetness that make up most of the cake.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softens the batter to a soft consistency.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
The step that matters
Rubbing the fat into the flour. Rubbing fat into flour until fine coats the flour particles, limiting gluten development so the cake stays tender rather than tough. Lumps of fat left behind can make the texture uneven.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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