Skip to main content
Dessert

Raspberry Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, raspberry blancmange powder, baking powder, butter icing, raspberry icing, and icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raspberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Weigh the packet of blancmange powder and make the total weight up to 4 oz with flour.

  3. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.

  4. Beat the yolks with the sugar until thoroughly mixed.

  5. Sift the flour, blancmange powder, and baking powder together.

  6. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Gently fold the flour mixture and the beaten egg whites into the yolk and sugar mixture.

  8. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Once baked, turn the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.

  3. When cool, slice the cake in half horizontally.

Fill and top

  1. Prepare butter icing flavored with a few raspberries rubbed through a sieve and spread it on the bottom half of the cake.

  2. Place the top half of the cake back on.

  3. Sift icing sugar into a bowl and mix with enough sieved raspberries to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  4. Pour the raspberry icing over the center of the cake, allowing it to run over the sides.

  5. Once the icing has set, decorate the cake with raspberry butter icing using a piping bag.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raspberry + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift and yolks add richness and structure to the sponge.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the yolks thicken and hold air when beaten.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the sponge as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Bird’s raspberry blancmange-powder
Adds raspberry flavor and a little cornflour that softens the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites hold the air that lifts the sponge. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard knocks it out and leaves a dense, flat cake.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

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

You might also like

Raspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesRaspberry CreamRaspberry Cream82 recipesRaspberry IceRaspberry Ice29 recipesRaspberry Ice CreamRaspberry Ice Cream24 recipes