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Dessert

Duchess Cake

A spiced fruit cake with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and spices baked at 350°F.

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 ↓

Duchess 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

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour, then the chopped raisins, currants, and citron.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  5. Mix the dry ingredients into the batter until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake and fruit together as it sets.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts properly and helps keep the crumb tender.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep sweetness, and its acidity activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Mix the dry ingredients into the batter until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to develop; overmixing makes the cake tough and dense, so stop as soon as no dry streaks remain.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, raisin, cream, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, raisin, cream, molasses. 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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