Skip to main content
Dessert

87 Bisque Cake

A sweet cake with a stiff batter, baked in jelly‑cake tins, topped with chocolate icing and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk or water and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter, then add the baking powder and vanilla.

  5. Pour the batter into jelly-cake tins and bake until golden.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 1 cup of sugar and the grated chocolate.

  2. Spread the icing between the layers of cake and sprinkle with grated coconut.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Butter + milktop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake that holds it together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff to give the icing a light, airy, marshmallow-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while tenderising the crumb.

The step that matters

Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter, then add the baking powder. Too little flour leaves a batter that cannot hold the rise, while overmixing after the flour goes in can toughen the crumb. Add the baking powder once the batter is stiff so its gas is not lost before baking.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Coconutthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes