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Dessert

Dolly Varden Cake

A layered cake with molasses, raisins, currants, citron, and spices, baked in four pans and optionally frosted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Dolly Varden 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

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

  4. Stir in the sweet milk, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda until combined.

  5. Divide the batter in half; pour one half into two greased pans.

  6. To the remaining batter, add molasses, raisins, currants, chopped citron, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  7. Pour this mixture into the other two greased pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake all four layers until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes alternately with jelly or beaten egg white.

  3. Frost the top if desired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that lifts the layers.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness to the fruited layers.

The step that matters

Dividing the batter and adding the fruit mixture. Baking soda and cream of tartar start reacting as soon as they meet liquid, so the batter should be baked promptly. Spreading the batter evenly across the four pans gives layers of matching thickness that bake through at the same rate.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream, molasses. 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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