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Dessert

Cake Raised with Powders

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and raised with soda or cream tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Catharine Esther Beecher (1800–1878) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cake Raised with Powders

makes two loaves

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Take one cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs.

  2. Mix the butter, sugar, and yolks.

  3. Add the flour very thoroughly.

  4. Whisk the egg whites into a stiff froth and fold them into the batter.

  5. Bake immediately.

  6. Alternatively, omit the eggs and work two teaspoons of cream tartar into the flour.

  7. Mix well first the butter and sugar, then the flour.

  8. When ready to bake, mix very thoroughly and quickly a teaspoon of soda, or a bit of salt volatile dissolved in a cup of warm water.

  9. This makes two loaves.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake the batter in thin layers, only a little thicker than carpeting.

  2. When nearly cool, spread over the cake a paste made of equal parts of scraped chocolate and sugar wet with water.

  3. Place the cake in layers one over another, frost the top, and then cut in oblong pieces for the cake-basket.

  4. Proceed as above, only using jelly instead of chocolate.

  5. Proceed as for jelly-cake, having flavored the cake when making with a little grated orange peel.

  6. The oranges must be peeled, chopped fine, and sweetened.

  7. Blanch three ounces of almonds (pour over boiling water and remove skins).

  8. Chop or pound the almonds with an equal quantity of sugar, make a thin paste with water, and use this instead of the jelly.

  9. Cocoa-nut, chopped fine, can be used instead of almonds.

  10. Strawberries, peaches, cranberries, and quinces, and any other fruit, mashed or cooked, can be used in place of the jelly, being first sweetened.

  11. Add spices and fruit before baking to make the cake richer.

  12. Use cream in place of butter.

  13. Chopped almonds, citron, or cocoa-nut may be put in the cake for baking, making another variety.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

686Calories
20 gProtein
23 gFat
96 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Catharine Esther Beecher (1800–1878). 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. See the original page.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps carry the sugar through the batter.
Eggs
Give structure and lift when the whites are whisked to a stiff froth.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once it is set by baking.
Sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize its crumb.
Cream tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after adding the egg whites. Whipped egg white foam loses its air over time, and the leavening from the powders is released quickly, so waiting lets the cake fall and rise poorly.

“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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