Name: Dover Cake
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 cup sugar; ½ cup butter; ½ cup milk; 2 cups flour; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; nutmeg (to taste)

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Dover 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

Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Add the sugar, butter, and milk, and mix well.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until well combined.
Flavor the batter with nutmeg to taste.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 they set in the oven.
Flour: Forms the cake's main structure once it is mixed and baked.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar: Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness, richness, and flavor in the crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and contributes to browning as it bakes.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Nutmegthe original
Cinnamonfits about as well
Capersfits less well
Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream. 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.