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Dessert

Prune Layer Cake

A moist cake made with prunes, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Prune Layer Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cook the prunes until soft, then chop them finely.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the sour cream and chopped prunes.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. Let cool before layering with whipped cream.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tender texture and flavor when creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with the butter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Prunes
Add moisture, dark color and natural sweetness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which makes the cake tough. Stopping as soon as the flour disappears keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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