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Dessert

A Dover Cake

A sweet cake made with milk, flour, sugar, butter, eggs, spices, brandy, rose water, and optional raisins or currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

A Dover Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the pearl ash in vinegar.

  2. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  3. Gradually add the spices and liquor to the creamed mixture.

  4. Beat the eggs until light and stir them into the butter and sugar alternately with the flour.

  5. Gradually add the milk and mix well.

  6. If using, flour the raisins and currants well and stir them in at the end.

Bake and keep

  1. Butter a large tin pan and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours in a moderate oven (350°F or 175°C).

  3. If the cake is not thick, check for doneness after 1 hour.

  4. Wrap the cake in a thick cloth to keep it moist and fresh for up to two weeks.

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. Milk + flourtop 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. Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift, setting the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Powdered white sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps give a tender crumb.
Pearl ash
Dissolved in vinegar, it reacts to help the cake rise and lighten.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that helps form the batter's texture.

The step that matters

Checking doneness in a thick cake. A dense, thick cake may look set outside while the centre is still wet. Testing early and baking until the centre is set prevents a gummy middle, since the long bake must fully set the eggs and flour.

“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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