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Dessert

Variety Cake

A layered cake with a light, buttered part and a dark, molasses and raisin part, finished with a lemon-flavored frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Variety Cake

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Variety Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batters

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat egg whites until stiff.

  3. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the milk and baking powder. Gradually mix in the flour.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Flavor with lemon.

  6. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, molasses, raisins, egg yolks, baking soda, coffee, and spices.

  7. Add flour to the dark mixture until combined.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour both mixtures into square tins, alternating layers if desired.

  2. Beat egg whites with a little sugar and flavor with lemon.

  3. Add enough sugar to achieve a frosting consistency.

  4. Spread the frosting between the layers and on top of the cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff and folded in, they lighten the batter and give the cake an airy crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the dark batter and help bind it.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives a tender, moist crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the dark batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring instead of folding deflates the whipped foam, which removes the air that lightens the cake and leaves it dense.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, molasses, coffee):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, molasses, coffee. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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