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Dessert

Cherry Cake

A baked cake with cherries, flour, butter, eggs, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cherry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Line cake molds with buttered paper, making sure the paper is higher than the molds.

  2. Combine flour, butter, beaten eggs, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl to form a firm paste.

  3. Stir in cream or milk and the prepared cherries.

Bake and serve

  1. Half fill the molds with the batter.

  2. Let the batter rise in a warm place.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  4. Turn the cakes out of the molds.

  5. Cool the cakes on a wire rack.

  6. Serve with the paper on.

  7. Add orange or lemon peel if desired.

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

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

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once the batter is baked.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep a tender crumb.
Cherries
Add moisture and fruity flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Half fill the molds with the batter. Baking powder needs room to expand. Overfilling can cause the batter to spill over, while underfilling leaves a dense, small cake. Filling to about half the mold leaves space for the batter to rise.

“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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