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Dessert

Honey Cake

A sweet cake made with honey, butter, sour milk, flour, and a date and nut filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Honey Cake

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Honey 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 cake batter

  1. Cream together the honey and butter.

  2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together three times.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the honey and butter mixture alternately with the sour milk, beating well.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg and vanilla.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C).

  2. For the filling, place honey in a small saucepan. Cream together the butter and flour, then add to the honey.

  3. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and stir in the dates and nuts.

  4. Cool until lukewarm, then spread between the cake layers.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Honey + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,262 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides sweetness, moisture and a tender crumb in the cake and filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the batter and filling.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the leavening to help the cake rise and stay tender.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating in the dry ingredients alternately with the sour milk. Adding flour in portions and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter light; overbeating develops gluten and can make the cake tough.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, butter, milk, flour, vanilla, egg, dates):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, butter, milk, flour, vanilla, egg, dates. 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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