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Dessert

Huckleberry Cake

A cake made with huckleberries, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Huckleberry Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the egg and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda with the milk.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar into the flour.

  5. Combine the milk mixture with the creamed mixture and beat thoroughly.

  6. Gradually add the flour until a stiff batter forms.

  7. Fold in the dried huckleberries.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to leaven the batter and balance sweetness.
Egg
Binds the ingredients and adds structure and moisture to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it is gradually added to a stiff batter.
Dried huckleberries
Add fruit flavour and chewy pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Combining the baking soda with the cream of tartar. Baking soda needs an acid to release carbon dioxide. If the leavening acid is poorly distributed or the batter sits too long before baking, the cake may rise unevenly or lose lift.

“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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