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Dessert

Huckleberry-cake

A cake made with huckleberries, flour, sugar, eggs, butter, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Huckleberry-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

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

  2. Butter two sheet pans.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until light.

  2. Beat in 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Beat the egg yolks.

  4. Combine the egg yolks with the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  6. Gradually add the second cup of sugar to the egg whites while beating.

  7. Mix the huckleberries into the flour.

  8. Ensure each berry is coated.

  9. Combine the butter mixture with the flour and berries.

  10. Fold in the egg yolk mixture.

  11. Add the sour milk gradually.

  12. Mix gently to avoid mashing the berries.

Bake

  1. Fill the prepared pans three-fourths full.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes without opening the oven for the first 10 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, whipped to stiff peaks, add lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb while whipping the egg whites.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once the batter is set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and its liquid moistens the batter.

The step that matters

Mix the huckleberries and fold gently. Berries coated in flour are less likely to sink, and gentle folding keeps the batter airy and avoids mashing the berries, which would turn the batter purple and dense.

“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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