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Dessert

Barger Cake

A butter cake with a filling of melted butter, powdered sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Barger 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Add the milk and mix well.

  5. Sift the flour with the baking powder and fold into the mixture.

  6. Flavor with vanilla.

  7. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and stir in powdered sugar until thick.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of cream to the filling and mix until smooth.

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.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps loosen the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar until light and fluffy traps air bubbles that expand in the oven. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake, while over-mixing after adding flour can toughen it.

“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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