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Dessert

Raised Cake

A yeast-leavened cake made with milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and spices, baked until risen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Raised Cake

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Raised Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Combine scalded milk, compressed yeast, and sugar to make a stiff batter.

  2. Cover the mixture closely.

Mix and rise

  1. Add warm milk, creamed sugar, butter, eggs, and baking soda, then mix thoroughly.

  2. Add flour and spices to taste.

  3. Pour into tins and let rise until bubbles form on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Compressed yeast
Produces gas during the rise, lightening the batter and giving it an open texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer mouthfeel in the crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to add some extra lift and a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Let the cake rise until bubbles form on top. Under-rising leaves a dense cake, while over-rising lets the yeast gas escape and the structure collapse in the oven. Watch for bubbles on the surface rather than relying only on time.

“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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