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Dessert

Cream Cake

A cake made with flour, sugar, sweet cream, lemon, raisins, and eggs, baked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · 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 ↓

Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Put two cups flour in a crock and mix with two level teaspoons cream tartar and one teaspoon soda.

  2. Make a well in the center and put one cup sugar, one cup sweet cream, one egg, and a small teaspoon salt.

  3. Mix all quickly together, flavor with one teaspoon lemon, and put in pan to bake.

Finish

  1. Add one cup raisins or currants, if you like, and it makes a nice cake pudding to eat hot with sauce.

  2. If using sour cream instead of sweet cream, omit the cream tartar and use two eggs instead of one.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

707Calories
21 gProtein
12 gFat
128 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the crumb a tender texture.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Cream tartar
Adds acidity that reacts with soda to help the cake rise.
Soda (in the method)
Releases gas in the acidic batter, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Mix all quickly together. Overmixing develops gluten and toughens the cake, and the leavening starts reacting as soon as liquid meets the acid, so the batter should be combined quickly and put in the pan promptly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, cream, raisin, egg. 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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