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Dessert

Mich Cream Cake

A butter and sugar cake with raisins, brandy, nutmeg, and cream, baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mich Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until very white.

  2. Separate the eggs.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Beat the egg yolks until frothy.

  5. Stir the egg yolks into the butter and sugar mixture.

  6. Add the brandy, nutmeg, and flour gradually.

  7. Fold in the thick cream and beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and structure to the crumb.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, aerated batter.
Thick cream
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the crumb soft and rich.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped; folding gently keeps that air in the batter so the cake rises lightly. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a dense cake.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, brandy, flour, cream, raisin):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, brandy, flour, cream, raisin. 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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