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Dessert

Porcupine Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, almonds, and a vanilla‑flavored cream topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Porcupine 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 cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the egg and milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

Make the cream and assemble

  1. Once the cake is cool, stick the soft almonds over the top.

  2. To make the cream, cook the eggs, milk, sugar, corn starch, and vanilla over hot water until thickened.

  3. Pour the cream over the almonds on the cake.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  5. Almond + corntop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, when cooked, thicken the cream topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust as it bakes.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream so it sets rather than staying liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking the cream over hot water until thickened. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat; too much heat can curdle them. Cooking slowly over hot water and stirring keeps the cream smooth and lets the corn starch thicken it evenly.

“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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