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Dessert

Raspberry Cake

A pastry tart filled with fresh raspberries, a sweet syrup, and a butter‑sugar‑crumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Raspberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the raspberries

  1. Place raspberries in a saucepan and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Heat gently until juice flows, then remove the raspberries before they fall apart.

  3. Boil the syrup until clear and thick, then pour it out.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter.

  2. Add powdered sugar, bread crumbs, almond extract, and egg yolks, then mix well.

  3. Fold in the whisked egg whites gently.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a tartlet tin with pastry.

  2. Add raspberries, pour syrup over them, and spread the mixture on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 minutes, until the pastry is golden.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites, whisked and folded in, give the mixture lift and a light, airy texture.
Butter
Creamed butter provides richness and a tender crumb in the batter.
Raspberries
Provide the fruity flavour and juice that soaks into the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the raspberries and helps draw out their juice into a syrup.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the batter and help soak up the raspberry juice.

The step that matters

Folding in the whisked egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while it is trapped in the foam. Stirring vigorously knocks out that air and makes the cake dense, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, bread, egg):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peasfits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, bread, egg. 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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