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Dessert

Layer Cake with Sour Cream Filling

A two-layer cake with a sweetened sour cream filling, raisins, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Layer Cake with Sour Cream Filling

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the melted butter and milk, mixing well.

  4. Sift the baking powder into the flour and gradually add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  6. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the cakes cool before removing from the pans.

  3. For the filling, mix the whipped sour cream with the chopped raisins and nuts.

  4. Spread the filling between the two layers and on top.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang to the whipped filling that sits between and on top of the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.

The step that matters

Cream the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Beating air into the sugar and eggs creates bubbles that help the cake rise and give it a light texture. Under-beating leaves a dense cake.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, flour, vanilla, cream. 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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