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Dessert

Blueberry Cake

A moist blueberry cake baked with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Blueberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream butter and sugar together.

  3. Add eggs and mix well.

  4. Combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon in another bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mixture, alternating with milk.

  2. Flour blueberries and fold into batter.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into greased cake pan and bake 30‑35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lift.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, lightly browned crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Blueberries
Add moisture, tartness and burst of fruit flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Flouring the blueberries before folding. Light flouring coats the berries so they are less likely to sink to the bottom of the batter and bleed color. Fold gently so the batter keeps the air trapped during creaming and mixing.

“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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