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Dessert

Dutch Peach Cake

A baked cake with a batter of eggs, milk, butter, flour, sugar, and topped with sliced peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Dutch Peach Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs.

  3. Add the milk, melted butter, salt, and flour; mix thoroughly.

  4. Add the baking powder and mix again.

  5. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites.

  6. Pour the batter into a shallow baking pan.

Top and bake

  1. Cover the top with halved peaches and dust with sugar.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes until golden.

  3. Serve warm with milk or cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites lighten it, giving a tender, airy crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, pourable batter.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to soft peaks. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently, just until no streaks remain.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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