Name: American Butter Cakes
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 3 pints buttermilk or sour milk; 1/2 ounce bicarbonate of soda; 1/2 ounce coarse sea salt; 2 egg yolks; 2 ounces melted butter

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

American Butter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

Mix half cake flour and half bread flour, then sift with the soda and salt three times.
Make a well in the center of the flour, add 2 pints of milk, egg yolks, and melted butter.
Incorporate all the flour and add the remaining milk to form a slack, smooth dough.
Knead the dough well, then flatten it on a floured surface and let it rest until it loses its springiness.

Shape and rise

Roll out the dough to about 3/4 inch thick, let it rest for a minute, then cut into 3-inch biscuits.
Place the biscuits in a cloth-lined, dusted box, cover, and let rise in a cool place until about 1 inch thick.
Carefully lift out the biscuits and bake on a hot plate or griddle on both sides like English muffins.

Serve

Split the cakes in half, butter them well, and serve hot.

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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,674 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the cakes their structure.
Buttermilk or sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the soda and adds tang and a tender crumb.
Bicarbonate of soda: Reacts with the acidic milk to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the dough.
Melted butter: Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor.

The step that matters

Let the biscuits rise until about 1 inch thick. Rising lets the dough expand gradually before it hits the hot plate. Judge by thickness rather than time, since a cool place slows the rise. Under-risen cakes turn out dense, and over-risen ones deflate when lifted.

“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.

Buttermilk Pie12 recipes

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

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American Butter Cakes