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Dessert

Blueberry-tea Cake

A moist cake made with flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, and blueberries, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Blueberry-tea Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, eggs, sweet milk, and melted butter until well combined.

  2. Gently fold in the flour mixture.

  3. Carefully add the blueberries or huckleberries, stirring to avoid breaking them.

  4. Fill the pans about three-quarters full with the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

  2. Serve with stewed berries.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and turns light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour into batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.

The step that matters

Carefully add the blueberries or huckleberries. Berries are fragile and release juice when crushed, which can streak the batter and make it soggy. Dusting them in flour helps suspend them, and gentle folding keeps them whole and evenly spread.

“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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