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Dessert

Scripture Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, eggs, flour, raisins, figs, almonds, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scripture 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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine 1 cup of sugar, 3 eggs, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon spice.

  3. Add 1½ cups of water and mix well.

  4. Sift together 3 cups of flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in 2 cups of chopped raisins, 2 cups of chopped figs, and 1 cup of chopped almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.
Figs
Add chewy texture, moisture and natural sweetness to the cake.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour against the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit and nuts. Folding keeps the batter airy and avoids overmixing, which would develop too much gluten and make the cake dense and tough. Fruit and nuts should be evenly distributed so each slice has a consistent texture.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Datesfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, raisin, almond. 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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