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Dessert

Cake

A simple cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, optional rose water and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease an iron baking pan and line the bottom with brown paper, greasing the paper as well.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with a spoon.

  2. If using eggs, beat them separately and then combine with the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Add the sifted flour and spices, mixing until well combined.

  4. If using fruit, coat it with a little flour to absorb excess moisture before adding it to the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + flourtop 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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds fat for a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, aerated texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Coat the fruit in flour before adding it to the batter. Wet fruit releases moisture into the batter, which can make the cake dense and soggy around the fruit. A light coating of flour absorbs surface moisture and helps suspend the pieces so they do not sink to the bottom.

“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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