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Dessert

Grand Duke Cake

A layered cake made with egg whites, butter, sugar, flour, raisins, molasses, spices, and baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Grand Duke 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.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff peaks form.

  3. Cream together the white sugar and 1 cup of butter in another bowl.

  4. Add the sweet milk, cornstarch, flour, baking powder, and lemon flavoring to the butter mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Mix the egg yolks with brown sugar and ½ cup of butter in a separate bowl until smooth.

  7. Stir in the milk, flour, chopped raisins, molasses, baking powder, and mixed spices.

Bake and assemble

  1. Grease jelly cake pans.

  2. Pour the white batter into the pans.

  3. Pour the dark batter into the pans alternately.

  4. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  5. Cool the cake.

  6. Layer with boiled icing in between.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the white batter its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat to the dark batter, helping it set tender and moist.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat, giving a tender crumb and rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color and flavor of the dark batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold the batter's air, so folding gently with a spatula keeps the bubbles intact. Stirring vigorously deflates them and leads to a denser, flatter cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, raisin, 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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