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Dessert

Easter Cake

A sweet cake made with milk, butter, flour, eggs, sugar, saffron, rose water, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Easter Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the butter in the milk.

  2. Skim off the butter and add it to the flour.

  3. Stir the baking powder, rose water, and saffron into the milk.

  4. Mix the milk with the flour and butter.

  5. Add the powdered white sugar.

  6. Beat the yolks and the whites separately.

  7. Add the beaten yolks and whites to the mixture.

  8. Mix all ingredients well together.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Saffron + rosetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + saffrontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Yolks and whites add richness, structure and lift to the cake's crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and keep moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Beat the yolks and whites separately. Beating the whites on their own lets them trap air that gives the cake lift, and folding them in gently keeps that air from collapsing. Overmixing after adding them knocks air out and makes a dense cake.

Swap the saffron

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Saffronthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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