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Dessert

Dresden Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, yeast, cream, salt, sugar, egg yolks, and butter, baked and served with melted butter and optional 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, combine flour, yeast, cream, salt, sugar, and egg yolks to form a smooth paste.

  2. Knead the mixture lightly until well blended and uniform in color.

  3. 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.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Brush the top of the risen dough with beaten egg.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven for nearly 1 hour, until lightly colored.

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

  5. Reassemble the cake and serve immediately, or spread with jelly and dust with sugar for an entremets.

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 main structure of the dough as its proteins set during baking.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise before baking.
Egg yolks
Add richness, colour and structure to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and moisture when poured over the slices.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to double the dough. If the dough is underproofed, the cake will be dense; this is why the rise should reach doubled size before baking.

“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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