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Dessert

Huckleberry Cake

A cake made with eggs, powdered sugar, butter, sweet milk, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, huckleberries, and baking soda.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, sweet milk, and prepared flour alternately with the whipped egg whites.

  3. Fold in the dredged huckleberries.

  4. Pour the batter into small loaf pans or patty pans.

Bake

  1. Bake until golden, covering with foil if it begins to brown.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 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

Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise, while yolks add richness and structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds fat for a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Creams with butter to add sweetness and help create a fine, soft texture.
Prepared flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Huckleberries
Add tart fruit flavour and moisture; flouring them helps keep them suspended in the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites must be folded gently with the flour and milk mixture so the air bubbles that give lift are not knocked out, which would leave 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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