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Dessert

Huckleberry Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and huckleberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Huckleberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Mix in the milk, flour, spices, whipped egg whites, and dissolved baking soda in the order given.

  4. Gently stir in the huckleberries with a wooden spoon, being careful not to bruise them.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites lighten the crumb and help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Huckleberries
Add moisture and fruity flavor; flour dredging keeps them from sinking.

The step that matters

Folding in the huckleberries. Stirring gently with a wooden spoon keeps the batter's trapped air intact and avoids bruising the berries, which would release juice and make the cake streaky and dense.

“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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