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Dessert

Coleman Cake

A cake made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking powder, rose water, cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 19,187 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Coleman Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Rub half pound butter with one pound white sugar to a very light cream.

  2. Beat in six eggs, one cup sweet milk, two teaspoonfuls of breadmaker's baking powder sifted into the flour, one teaspoonful powdered cinnamon, and one tablespoonful rose water.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine two cups sugar, one cup butter, yolks of five eggs, whites of two eggs, one cup milk, three and a half cups flour, and two teaspoonfuls of breadmaker's baking powder sifted into the flour.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in jelly-cake tins.

  2. For the filling, whisk together whites of three eggs, one and a half cups sugar, three tablespoonfuls grated chocolate, and one teaspoonful vanilla.

  3. Flavour the frosting with lemon juice.

  4. Bake well together, spread between the layers, and on top. Bake.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,032 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the batter as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and sweeten the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Rub butter with sugar to a very light cream. Beating butter and sugar together traps air in the fat. That trapped air expands in the oven and gives a lighter texture, so the creaming must be thorough.

“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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