Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry or Raspberry Cake

A cake made with sour milk, butter or sour cream, flour, baking soda, salt, water, and berries, topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Strawberry or Raspberry Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix sour milk with butter or sour cream.

  2. Stir in flour to make a thick batter.

  3. Add salt and baking soda dissolved in water, and stir well.

  4. Add more flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.

Bake and assemble

  1. Roll out two-thirds of an inch thick.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Split the cake open.

  4. Fill with strawberries or raspberries.

  5. Sprinkle with white sugar.

  6. Cover.

  7. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas for rising and a tender crumb.
Butter or sour cream
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together once it is rolled and baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to lift the dough as it bakes.
Strawberries or raspberries
Add moisture, fruity flavor and acidity to the filling.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda dissolved in water and stir well. Baking soda needs acid to release carbon dioxide. Stirring it evenly through the dough distributes the gas so the cake rises uniformly rather than in pockets or patches.

“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.

More strawberry cake recipes

Sweet 3 See all 19 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes