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Dessert

Raspberry Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 the batter

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

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

  3. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs; beat the sugar into the yolks until thoroughly mixed.

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

  5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them and the flour mixture into the yolk and sugar mixture.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin and bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

Cool and fill

  1. Once baked, turn the cake onto a sieve to cool completely.

  2. When cool, split the cake in half.

  3. Make butter icing flavored with raspberries that have been rubbed through a sieve.

  4. Spread the butter icing on one half of the cake and place the other half on top.

Ice and decorate

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

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

  3. Once the icing is 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. Butter + raspberrytop 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 trapped by whisking give the sponge its lift, and yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge once the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the yolks and aerate the batter.
Blancmange powder
Adds flavor and softness, partly replacing flour in the batter.

The step that matters

Folding the whites into the batter. Whisked egg whites hold the air that lifts the sponge. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out air, leaving a denser, flatter 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.

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