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Dessert

Dough Cake

A sweet cake made with raised bread dough, sugar, raisins, eggs, spices, butter, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dough Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the raised bread dough and butter thoroughly by hand.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs into the mixture.

  4. Do not let the mixture rise; pour it into a greased bread pan immediately.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Raised bread dough
Provides the base structure and a yeasted, slightly chewy crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and moisture to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the mixture to help the cake rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture rise before baking. The dough contains live yeast, so letting it rise before baking can over-develop the gluten and yeast flavor and deflate the cake. Pouring it into the pan and baking straight away keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter. 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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