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Baking

Cherry Cake

A simple baked cake made with flour, cherries, and optional brandy and almonds, finished with white icing and fresh cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cherry and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 672 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cherry 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. Quarter the cherries and set them aside.

Mix and bake

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour with the cherries.

  2. Add cherry essence, brandy and chopped almonds if desired, and mix until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased cake pan.

  4. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Ice and decorate

  1. Once cooled, ice the top with white icing and decorate with cherries and angelica leaves.

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. Cherry + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together672 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cherry + angelicatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Flour + angelicatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
Cherries
Add moisture and sweetness, and their juices flavour the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Flour starches and proteins set as the cake heats through. Pulling it too early leaves a damp, sunken centre, while baking too long dries the crumb. A toothpick test shows whether the middle is fully set.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cherry, brandy, angelica):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cherry, brandy, angelica. 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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