Skip to main content
Dessert

Whortleberry Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and blueberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Whortleberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk, flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  5. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and add it to the batter.

  7. Gently fold in the floured whortleberries, being careful not to bruise them.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake until a straw inserted in the thickest part comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to give the cake its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Blueberries
Add juicy pockets of fruit and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the blueberries. Blueberries are delicate and can burst or bleed color into the batter if overmixed. Dredging them in flour helps suspend them, and gentle folding keeps the crumb intact and the berries evenly distributed.

“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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes