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 ↓
Cheap Minnehaha 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.
Make the cake layers
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Add the egg yolks and mix well.
Stir in the milk or water.
Gradually add the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda, mixing until smooth.
Pour the batter into 3 or 4 greased cake tins.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Make the filling and assemble
For the layers, boil 1½ cups sugar with a little water until it ropes.
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gradually add the sugar syrup, mixing well.
Fold in the chopped raisins.
Spread the mixture between the baked layers and on top.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind the batter into a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and helps stabilize the leavening action with baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the frosting-like filling its airy, light texture.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks before adding the sugar syrup. Whites must be fully whipped to hold air, and the hot syrup should be added slowly while beating. Adding it too fast or under-whipping can cause the foam to collapse or become dense and loose.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, milk, flour, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinthe original
- Coconutfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, flour, 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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