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Dessert

Dutch Cake

A cinnamon-flavored cake made with flour, sugar, butter, heavy cream, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Dutch 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing until combined.

  4. Spread the batter into a square baking tin.

Top and bake

  1. Sprinkle the top with sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Pour the heavy cream over the top.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown at the surface.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness as it is poured over the top.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar until light and fluffy traps air bubbles that expand in the oven, helping the cake rise and turn out tender. Under-creaming leaves a dense result.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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