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Dessert

Dresden Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, cream, salt, sugar, egg yolks, and butter, baked and served with melted butter.

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.

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour and yeast in a bowl.

  2. Add cream, salt, sugar, and egg yolks.

  3. Knead until smooth.

  4. Place dough in a well-buttered cake mold.

  5. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 6 to 8 hours.

Bake and finish

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Brush top with beaten egg.

  3. Bake for nearly 1 hour, avoiding over-browning.

  4. Remove from mold.

  5. Slice.

  6. Pour melted butter over slices.

  7. Reassemble and serve immediately.

  8. Spread jelly or preserve on slices and dust with sugar before serving.

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, leavening the dough so it becomes light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb, and flavor when poured over the slices.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, producing a softer, richer dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and browning during baking.

The step that matters

Baking without over-browning. The cake bakes for nearly an hour at high heat, and sugars and proteins on the surface brown quickly. Watching the top and tenting it if needed keeps the crust golden while the interior fully sets.

“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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