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Dessert

Raspberry Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, raspberries, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Raspberry Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs, milk, and flour mixed with baking powder.

  3. Stir until combined.

  4. Bake in thin sheets until golden.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add sugar to sweeten.

  3. Crush the raspberries and mix with the egg whites.

  4. Beat until smooth.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the filling between the cake sheets when ready to serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 and give the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as they set.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake sheets as its proteins set when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake sheets rise and stay light.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the raspberry filling lightness and volume.
Raspberries
Add tart, fruity flavor and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks before the raspberries are folded in. Under-whipped whites collapse and make the filling runny, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy.

“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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