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Dessert

Prune Layer Cake

A moist cake made with sugar, butter, lard, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour, and stewed prunes.

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

Prune Layer 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter‑lard mixture.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the sour milk and baking soda.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the stewed prunes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25‑30 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 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
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set into a sturdy crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake and lightens its texture.
Butter and lard
Add fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Stewed prunes
Add moisture and natural sweetness, keeping the cake soft.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with fat.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour milk and baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid such as sour milk to react and release gas. Adding it late, or letting the batter stand too long before baking, lets the gas escape and leaves the cake flat and dense.

“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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