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Dessert

A Nice Plain Cake for Children

A simple plain cake made with dough, sugar, butter or beef dripping, milk, and nutmeg or caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

A Nice Plain Cake for Children

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. If using store-bought dough, place it in a basin near the fire.

  2. Cover the dough with a thick cloth to allow it to rise.

Mix and shape

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Warm the milk.

  3. Once the dough has risen, mix in all the ingredients thoroughly.

  4. Knead the dough for a few minutes.

  5. Butter some cake tins.

  6. Fill the tins halfway with the dough.

  7. Let the tins rise in a warm place.

Bake

  1. When the tins are three-quarters full, bake the cakes in a good oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 2 hours.

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 + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Dough
Provides the risen, yeasted base that gives the cake its light, airy crumb.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, helping the cake stay tender and brown during baking.
Butter or beef dripping
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and helps the dough stay soft and workable.

The step that matters

Letting the tins rise before baking. A second rise in the tins lets the dough expand before the heat sets it. Filling only halfway leaves room for this, so the cakes bake up light rather than dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk. 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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