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Dessert

Dolly Varden Cake

A fruit and molasses cake with layers of raisins, currants, citron, and spices, frosted with jelly or beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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.

Make the batters

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

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

  6. Divide the batter in half.

  7. Pour half of the batter into two greased cake pans.

  8. Add molasses, raisins, currants, chopped citron, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to the remaining batter. Mix well.

  9. Pour the mixture into two greased cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake all four layers until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  2. Layer the cakes alternately with jelly or beaten egg white.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 richness, helping the batter set and bind.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lift.
Sugar
Creams with butter to aid aeration and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the fruit-studded layers.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients. Adding flour in portions while mixing keeps the batter smooth and evenly combined. Overmixing once flour is fully hydrated develops gluten, which can toughen the cake.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream, molasses. 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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