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Dessert

Blueberry Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, sour cream, eggs, blueberries, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Blueberry 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. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Mix in the molasses and sour cream or milk.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  5. Fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  6. Gently fold in the blueberries.

  7. Sift the baking soda with the flour and gradually add it to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Egg whites add lift and a light, airy crumb; yolks add richness and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream or molasses to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
Blueberries
Add moisture, tart bursts of flavor, and color throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks; overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, which leaves the cake dense instead of light and airy.

“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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