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Dessert

Dolly Varden Cake

A layered cake with dark and light batters, raisins, currants, spices, and jelly, finished with egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 3 egg whites, ½ cup syrup, 1 cup milk, and ½ cup butter until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, combine 1½ cups sugar, 1 cup milk, ½ cup butter, 2 cups flour, 4 egg yolks, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 1 cup chopped raisins, ½ cup currants, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg.

  4. Grease square cake tins and pour the dark batter into one and the light batter into another.

Bake and layer

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes alternately with jelly in between.

Frost

  1. For the frosting, beat 1 egg white and gradually add 1 cup powdered sugar until fluffy.

  2. Spread the frosting on top of the layered 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and help the batter set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to make the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and helps the cake bake through.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Underbaking leaves the centre wet and gummy, while overbaking dries the crumb. Checking with a toothpick shows when the structure has set without drying the cake, which matters more because the layers are stacked and filled.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

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