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Dessert

Blueberry Cake

A moist cake made with sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, baking powder, and blueberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Blueberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and egg, and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  2. Fold in the blueberries that have been rolled in flour.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Serve warm.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown at the edges.
Blueberries
Add moisture and bursts of fruit flavour through the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour-coated blueberries. Dusting the berries in flour helps suspend them so they do not sink to the bottom. Fold gently so the batter is not overmixed, which would toughen the crumb and release the baking powder's lift too early.

“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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