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Dessert

Dolly Varden Cake

A layered cake with raisins, currants, citron, molasses, spices, and a sugar icing.

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.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, and lemon flavoring; mix well.

  4. Divide the batter into two parts.

  5. For the dark part, mix in the raisins, currants, citron, molasses, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake the two parts in three layers, ensuring the top and bottom are darker.

  2. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the sugar until smooth.

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the layers rise and become airy.
Raisins
Add moisture and sweetness to the dark portion of the batter.
Molasses
Adds depth, moisture and a darker colour to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites for the icing. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff before sugar is added gradually; under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold their volume, so the icing turns out thin and loose instead of smooth.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg, lemon, raisin. 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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