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Dessert

Harrison Cake

A cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, butter, cream, baking soda, and grated nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Harrison 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

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

  3. Stir in the cream and grated nutmeg.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Let cool before serving with fresh butter.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Add structure and richness as they bind the batter and set during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Mixing only until no dry flour remains keeps the crumb tender.

“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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