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Dessert

Dewey Cake

A cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, milk, water, powdered sugar, figs, walnuts, raisins, and lemon icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dewey 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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, and milk until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter evenly into 3 jelly tins and bake until golden.

Make the fig layer

  1. For the layer mixture, combine water and powdered sugar in a saucepan and simmer until it becomes stringy.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add to the syrup and beat until cool.

  3. Fold in the chopped figs, walnuts, and raisins.

Ice and serve

  1. Ice the top of the cake with a mixture of powdered sugar and lemon juice to create a soft paste.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and moisture, and whipped whites add lift to the batter and layer.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture to the layer.

The step that matters

Simmering the syrup until stringy. As sugar syrup cooks, its water evaporates and it thickens. Cooking too briefly leaves it runny, while cooking too long makes it stiff and hard to fold in, so watch the syrup closely as it approaches the stringy stage.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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