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Dessert

Maple Layer Cake

A layered cake made with maple sugar, butter, buttermilk, flour, eggs, baking soda, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Maple Layer 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.

Prepare

  1. Melt the chocolate over hot water.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and maple sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs, buttermilk, and flour; mix well.

  3. Fold in the melted chocolate last.

Bake

  1. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Maple sugar
Provides sweetness and moisture, and adds a caramel-like maple flavor to the cake.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to trap air and add tenderness and fat for flavor.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the acid in the buttermilk. Uneven pockets can leave bitter spots or uneven rising.

“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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