Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Imperial 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten yolks of the eggs, lemon rind, and lemon juice. Mix well.
Gradually add the flour.
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.
Dredge the almonds, raisins, and citron with 2 tablespoons of flour.
Fold the dredged fruits into the batter along with the nectarine extract, rose water, and brandy.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,781 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in stiffly beaten, give the cake its lift and light crumb.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps create a fine, aerated structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake as the eggs and butter bake.
- Almonds
- Add nutty flavour and a firm, chewy bite throughout the cake.
- Raisins
- Add moisture and concentrated sweetness in pockets through the crumb.
The step that matters
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which is what lifts the batter. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out and leaves a dense cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour, almond, raisin, rose):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, almond, raisin, rose. 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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