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Dessert

A Swiss Cake

A Swiss cake made with flour, butter, salt, sugar, cream, egg yolks, egg whites, rum, and Parmesan cheese.

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 ↓

A Swiss 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 dough

  1. Set a sponge with 3 cups of sifted flour until well risen.

  2. Mix in 3 cups of sifted flour, 2 cups of butter, 1 ounce of salt, ½ cup of sugar, ½ cup of cream, 24 egg yolks, 12 egg whites, ⅓ cup of rum, and 6 ounces of grated Parmesan cheese.

Rise and bake

  1. Set the mixture in a warm place for 1 hour.

  2. Bake in an oven for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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 structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, helping it bake smooth and tender.
Egg whites
Trap air and set into structure, giving the cake lift and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and some browning from its proteins and milk solids.

The step that matters

Bake until fully set. The eggs must coagulate throughout the batter to form a firm structure. Underbaking leaves a wet, collapsed centre, while the long bake at moderate heat lets the middle set without over-browning the outside.

“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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