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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, combine 1 lb of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Rub 3 oz of clarified dripping into the flour until no lumps remain.
Add ½ lb of plums or currants (washed and dried) to the flour mixture.
If using, chop 2 oz of candied peel and add it to the bowl along with ¼ lb of sugar.
In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg with 2 tablespoons of milk, then mix into the dry ingredients.
Bake and cool
Grease a tin with dripping and pour the mixture into it.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.
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 structure of the cake as the starch sets during baking.
- Dripping
- Rubbed into the flour to coat it and add richness and a tender crumb.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and helps give the cake its set structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Plums or currants
- Add moisture and fruit flavour distributed through the cake.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and contributes to browning in the oven.
The step that matters
Rubbing the dripping into the flour until no lumps remain. Coating the flour particles with fat limits gluten formation and keeps the crumb tender. Unevenly rubbed fat leaves pockets of dry flour and dense or streaky patches.
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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