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Dessert

Dover Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, flour, sugar, milk, eggs, brandy, rose water, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking soda, and optional mixed fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

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

  3. Add the grated nutmeg, cinnamon, brandy, and rose water.

  4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, alternating with the flour.

  5. Gradually mix in the milk.

  6. If desired, fold in the mixed fruit slowly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased mold.

  2. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and trapping air when creamed.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb and browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in lemon juice or vinegar to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs one at a time, alternating with the flour. Adding eggs gradually lets the emulsion form without curdling, and alternating with flour keeps the batter stable so the cake bakes with an even, tender crumb.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, milk, egg, brandy, rose. 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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