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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, lemon, mace, eggs, milk, rosewater, flour, corn starch, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Caramel 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter, sugar, grated lemon rinds, and mace until you have a thick, smooth cream.

  2. Add the eggs three at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk and rosewater, and knead the mixture until smooth.

  4. Sift the baking powder through the flour and corn starch, then mix all ingredients together quickly until smooth.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into round cake pans, filling them to a depth of half an inch.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

  3. Ice with caramel icing once cooled.

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

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, creamed structure with the butter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb, giving a more tender texture than flour alone.

The step that matters

Mixing in the eggs. Adding eggs too quickly can cause the creamed butter and sugar to separate, which may make the cake dense. Adding them gradually, mixing well after each, keeps the batter emulsified and smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, lemon, egg, milk, flour, corn. 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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