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Dessert

Sour Cream Cake

A cake made with sour cream, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Sour Cream Cake

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sour Cream 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

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

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

  3. Beat the eggs until light, then add a little salt and flavor to taste.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the sour cream.

  2. Combine the sour cream mixture with the creamed butter and sugar.

  3. Gradually add the sifted flour and baking powder, mixing well.

  4. Pour the batter into a loaf pan or two‑layer pans.

Bake

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Beaten eggs add structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water before adding it to the sour cream. Baking soda needs moisture and an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it first spreads it evenly through the sour cream, so the cake rises uniformly without pockets of soda or a bitter taste.

“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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