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Dessert

Dresden Cake

A yeast-leavened cake made with flour, cream, butter, eggs, and sugar, baked and served with melted butter or jelly.

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 ↓

Dresden Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and yeast.

  2. Add cream, salt, sugar, and egg yolks; blend thoroughly.

  3. Knead the mixture until smooth and uniform in color.

Rise and bake

  1. Place the dough in a well-buttered cake mold and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 6 to 8 hours.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Brush the top with beaten egg and bake for about 1 hour, until lightly colored.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from the mold, slice, and pour melted butter over the slices.

  2. Reassemble the cake and serve immediately, or spread with jelly and dust with sugar for a dessert.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins set during baking.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it a light, airy crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness, colour and emulsifying fat that tenderise the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moistness, and flavour when poured over the slices.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, softening the dough and enriching its texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, helping the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time in a warm place to build gas and structure; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse and lose its shape.

“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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