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Dessert

Vienna Cake

A layered butter and flour sponge cake with jam, jelly, preserved fruits, and sugar-plums.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Vienna Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat together flour, butter, sugar, and egg yolks for 45 minutes.

  3. Whip egg whites to a froth and gradually mix into the batter until soft and light.

Bake and fill

  1. Cut paper to fit the baking dish, spread the batter on the paper, and bake until just set but not browned.

  2. Spread jam and jelly between layers of the cake once cooled.

Top and finish

  1. Top with additional whipped egg whites mixed with sugar and decorate with preserved fruits and sugar-plums.

  2. Let the cake dry in a cool oven.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + plumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + plumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they lighten the batter so the cake turns out soft and airy.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a smooth, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Jam
Adds fruit sweetness and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Bake until just set but not browned. Egg-rich batters set through protein coagulation, and over-baking makes them dry and tough, while stopping at set keeps the crumb moist and light.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Plumthe original

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