Skip to main content
Dessert

Dolly Varden Cake

A two-part cake with dark and light layers, raisins, currants, spices, and a powdered sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Dolly Varden 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 dark batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together ½ cup butter and 1 cup sugar for the dark part.

  3. Add 4 egg yolks, ⅓ cup milk, and ½ cup syrup, and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup chopped raisins, ½ cup currants, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix until combined.

  6. In a separate bowl, combine 2 cups flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder.

  7. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until smooth.

Make the light batter

  1. For the light part, cream together ½ cup butter and 1½ cups sugar.

  2. Add 3 egg whites, ⅓ cup milk, and 2 teaspoons vanilla, mixing well.

Bake, layer and frost

  1. Pour both mixtures into square tins.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cooled, layer the dark and light parts with jelly in between.

  4. Beat the remaining egg white, then mix it with 1 cup powdered sugar.

  5. Spread the frosting on top.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. 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

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help emulsify the batter for a smooth, moist crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the light part of the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter after adding the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes the cake tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes