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Dessert

Rich Plum Cake

A dense, sweet cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, Madeira wine, brandy, citron, spices, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Rich Plum Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour, then add the raisins, currants, Madeira wine, brandy, citron, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, and molasses. Mix until all ingredients are well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 3 to 4 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the fruit and flour into a set cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep colour to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, creamed texture.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow. Baking at a low 300°F for several hours lets the dense, fruit-heavy batter cook through evenly without the outside burning before the centre sets. Checking with a toothpick confirms the centre is done.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, madeira wine, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, madeira wine, brandy. 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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