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Dessert

Grand Duke Cake

A two-layer cake with a white batter and a dark batter containing molasses, spices, raisins, currants, and pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Grand Duke 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Cream together sugar and butter.

  4. Add sweet milk, corn starch, flour, and baking powder. Mix well.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Add lemon flavoring.

  7. Mix egg yolks, brown sugar, butter, sweet milk, molasses, flour, baking powder, spices, raisins, currants, pecans, and vanilla flavoring.

Bake and assemble

  1. Grease two cake pans.

  2. Pour the white batter into one pan and the dark batter into the other.

  3. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  4. Cool the cakes and layer them with icing in between.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give the white layer its airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture to the dark batter and help it set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in both batters.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep sweet flavor to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while they are stiff. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the white cake rises light instead of dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, corn, flour, molasses. 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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