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 ↓
Cream Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.
Melt the butter and mix it with the eggs.
Combine the sugar and cream of tartar with the flour.
Pour all ingredients into well-greased shallow pans.
Bake
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure as its proteins set during baking.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas and lift the batter.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture.
The step that matters
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.. Baking soda releases carbon dioxide when it meets an acid. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises uniformly. Get the batter into the pans and the oven promptly, because the gas is released quickly and can escape if the batter waits.
“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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