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Dessert

Huckleberry-cake

A baked 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) and butter two sheet pans.

  2. Cream the butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Mix the huckleberries with the flour, ensuring each berry is coated.

  4. Beat 1 cup of sugar into the creamed butter.

  5. Beat the egg yolks and then the egg whites separately until stiff peaks form.

  6. Combine the yolks and whites, then gradually add the remaining cup of sugar while beating.

Make the batter

  1. Add the butter and sugar mixture to the flour and berries.

  2. Stir in the egg mixture, then add the sour milk until the batter thickens, being careful not to mash the berries.

Bake

  1. Fill the pans three-fourths full and 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks add lift, and yolks add richness and set.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sour milk
Moistens the batter and its acidity helps the batter thicken.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Huckleberries
Add moisture, tartness, and fruit flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the huckleberries gently. Berries that are mashed release juice and color the batter, making the crumb soggy and streaked. Coating them in flour and stirring gently keeps them whole and suspended.

“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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