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Dessert

Spider Cake

A berry cake made with flour, baking powder, butter, and sweet milk, cooked in a skillet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Spider Cake

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 ↓

Spider Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder. Chop in the butter until well combined.

  2. Add the berries and enough sweet milk to form a soft dough.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat an iron skillet over medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Place the dough in the skillet, shaping it to about ¾ inch thick.

  3. Bake slowly for about 10 minutes on each side, shaking the skillet to prevent burning.

  4. Check for doneness before serving hot with plenty of 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Cut into the flour to add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Berries
Add moisture and fruity flavor scattered through the dough.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a soft dough.

The step that matters

Bake slowly and shake the skillet. Low, steady heat cooks the thick dough through before the outside browns too far. Shaking the skillet keeps the bottom from scorching and sticking while the cake sets.

“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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