Pound cake with raisins. I increased the viscosity of the batter so the raisins wouldn’t sink, and it was a success.

Calories and prices are approximate values.

Raisin Pound Cake Recipe (Instructions)

(1) Separate the egg into egg white and egg yolk.

(2) After mixing the egg white with a hand mixer for about 2-3 minutes, add 10g of sugar and mix for about 1 minute until it becomes white and glossy. This completes the meringue.

(3) In a separate bowl from the meringue, put 1 egg yolk, 40g sugar, 20g oil, and 10g soy milk, and mix with a hand mixer for about 2-3 minutes.

(4) After adding 70g of flour, the meringue, and a pinch of baking soda to (3), mix with a hand mixer until there are no lumps of flour.

(5) At this point, add 40g of raisins and mix with a spatula. The batter was not runny; it was quite viscous, dropping in thick blobs.

(6) Pour (5) into a cake mold, tap the bottom of the mold about a dozen times (to remove air), and place it in the oven (after preheating to 180℃). Bake at 180℃ for 15 minutes, then at 160℃ for 15 minutes. You can see that the raisins remain on the surface.

(7) After cooling, remove the pound cake from the mold and cut it. The finished product finally had raisins that didn’t sink. Because I increased the flour, the batter was a bit dry. Increasing the amount of raisins might make the texture more moist.

🧪 Viscosity vs. Palatability

1. Success in Particle Suspension

By increasing the flour to 70g and limiting the soy milk to 10g, I successfully increased the yield stress of the batter. From a physics perspective, the drag force of the thick batter overcame the gravitational force acting on the raisins, keeping them perfectly distributed throughout the cake.

2. The Trade-off: Moisture Loss

While the raisins stayed in place, the higher flour-to-liquid ratio resulted in a drier crumb. The cake felt less like a moist pound cake and more like a dense bread.

3. Future Optimization (The “Raisin Infusion” Strategy)

To regain moisture without losing viscosity, I plan to:

• Pre-soaking: Soak the raisins in hot water or rum before adding them. This prevents the dry raisins from “stealing” moisture from the batter.

• Fruit Volume: Increasing the raisin count to 60g could provide “internal steam” during baking, moistening the surrounding crumb from within.

• Humectant: Replacing some sugar with honey or adding 5g more oil could improve the “mouthfeel” while keeping the batter thick enough to support the fruit.