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Dessert

Huckleberry Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, huckleberries, and topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Huckleberry 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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light.

  2. Add the milk and the yolks of the eggs, mixing well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and baking powder, rubbing the baking powder into the flour.

Add fruit and bake

  1. Toss the huckleberries with some flour, then gently fold them into the batter without mashing.

  2. Pour the batter into buttered pans, about 1 inch thick.

  3. Dust the tops with sugar and bake at 350°F (175°C).

Rest

  1. For best flavor, let the cake sit overnight before serving.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify; whites are whipped to add lift and structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the batter for a soft crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, causing the cake to rise.
Huckleberries
Add juicy pockets of fruit, moisture, and tart flavor to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the batter and leaves a dense cake.

“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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