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Dessert

How We Cook in Tennessee

A group of white cake recipes, a small two-layer cake, and a coffee-chocolate icing from a Tennessee cookbook.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 33 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

How We Cook in Tennessee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first cake

  1. Cream butter and sugar till very light and white.

  2. Add one-quarter of the flour, then one-quarter of the beaten egg.

  3. Mix well, then stir in half the remaining flour and eggs.

  4. Beat this well, then put in the rest of the flour and eggs.

  5. Sift the baking powder into the flour.

  6. Bake one and one-half hours without opening the stove.

  7. Then turn on gas a little more and bake twenty minutes more to rise and brown.

Make the other cakes

  1. Cream butter, add sugar, then milk.

  2. Add beaten whites, then flour.

  3. Flavor with lemon extract to taste.

  4. Beat two eggs and one cup sugar together.

  5. Add one cupful flour, one round teaspoonful baking powder, half cup boiling milk, and one dessertspoonful butter dissolved in milk.

Make the icing

  1. Good Icing for Above: One cup confectioner's sugar, quarter cup butter beaten together, one teaspoonful vanilla, one teaspoonful cocoa.

  2. Wet to proper consistency with strong coffee.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1051Calories
29 gProtein
40 gFat
138 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Waternot in our table0
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 Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society. 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. Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Whites add structure and lift, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once the batter sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.

The step that matters

Bake one and one-half hours without opening the stove. Opening the oven drops its temperature and can make the batter sink or set unevenly, so the cake may collapse or turn out dense.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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

More white cake recipes

Egg 9Icing 8Plain 6Warsaw 5Almond 3Coconut 3 See all 331 →

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