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Dessert

Dutch Peach Cake

A baked peach cake made with flour, butter, egg, milk, and topped with sliced peaches, sugar, and cinnamon, served with rich cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Dutch Peach 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Rub the butter into the flour mixture until well combined.

  4. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk.

  5. Stir the egg and milk mixture into the flour mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Split the ripe peaches and press them into the top of the batter.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

  4. Serve with rich cream.

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. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.
Egg
Adds structure and helps bind the batter while setting.
Milk
Moistens the flour so the batter forms and stays tender.
Peaches
Add moisture and natural sweetness that soften and caramelize on top.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking long enough sets the egg and flour structure and browns the surface. Underbaking leaves the centre gummy and wet, while overbaking dries the crumb.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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