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Dessert

Raspberry Cakes

A cake made from dried raspberries, sugar syrup, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Raspberry Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and place raspberries in a stove to dry.

  2. Beat the dried raspberries in a mortar.

  3. Clarify and boil sugar with water to make a syrup.

Cook and mould

  1. Add half a pound of dried raspberries and beaten egg white to the syrup.

  2. Stir carefully and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the mixture into molds or paper cases.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Raspberries
Provide the main flavour, colour and fruit body of the cakes.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the mixture and forms the syrup that holds the cakes together.
Egg white
Its proteins set when heated, giving the mixture structure and body.

The step that matters

Stir carefully and bring to a boil. Egg white proteins set when heated, so gentle stirring keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps or curdling. Bringing it to a boil fully sets the proteins and helps the cakes hold their shape.

“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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