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Dessert

Geranium Cake

A sweet cake flavored with rose geranium leaves, made with butter, powdered sugar, water, flour, baking powder, egg whites, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Geranium Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter with the powdered sugar.

  2. Gradually add the water and sifted flour mixed with baking powder.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Prepare and bake

  1. Line a square baking pan with parchment paper and butter the pan.

  2. Place a layer of rose geranium leaves on the bottom.

  3. Pour the batter over the leaves.

  4. Bake.

Make the topping

  1. Boil the water and sugar until it reaches a hair's breadth consistency.

  2. Add the heavy cream and beat until cool.

  3. Pour the mixture quickly over the cake.

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

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

  2. Rose + geraniumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-rose oxide (green, flower).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, adding lift and a light, airy structure.
Rose geranium leaves
Lie under the batter to flavour the cake with their fragrant aroma.

The step that matters

Pour the sugar mixture quickly over the cake. The boiled sugar syrup cools and thickens fast, so it must be beaten until cool and poured promptly while it can still spread evenly over the cake.

“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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